mm. 


iil^iPlif 


HE  DILEMM.A 


F  THE 


lUUtMN  CHRISTIAN 


GIFT  OF 


^St^ 


a-^ 


'><^ 


%. 


^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/dilemmaofmoderncOOepperich 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 
MODERN  CHRISTIAN 


HOW  MUCH  CAN  HE  ACCEPT  OF 
TRADITIONAL    CHRISTIANITY? 


BY 

EDWARD  H.  EPPENS 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 

1911 


X 


^/ 


^ 


Copyright,   1911 
Sherman,  French  &  Company 


FOREWORD 

The  following  pages  contain  no  attempt  to 
solve  the  insoluble  questions  of  modern 
thought.  What  has  been  aimed  at  is  simply  a 
statement  concerning  the  central  facts  of 
Christian  faith  and  worship.  There  are  many 
people  to  whom  the  penumbra  of  faith  is  too 
congenial  to  allow  them  to  feel  at  ease  in  the 
bright  light  of  the  central  sun.  Some  of  these 
may  appreciate  an  honest  expression  con- 
cerning the  difficulties  of  their  position.  Those 
whose  faith  has  suffered  total  eclipse — if  there 
be  any  such — will  not  be  influenced  by  another 
person's  assurance  that  the  sun  still  shines 
unto  the  coming  of  the  perfect  day.  With 
those  who  have  reached  finality  about  the  mo- 
mentous questions  of  Christian  prayer,  the 
writer  seeks  no  quarrel.  He  is  aware  that  he 
has  nothing  to  offer  them. 

But  perhaps  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  as- 
sert that  the  purpose  of  these  pages  is  not  to 
unsettle  cherished  convictions.  The  writer's 
own  faith  in  God  and  God's  message  to  man 
would  make  such  a  negative  proceeding  impos- 
sible. The  modem  man  is  asking  questions. 
He  wants  to  know.  If  he  remains  humbly  con- 
scious of  his  limitations  and  is  willing  to  try 
out,  patiently,  whatever  the  progress  of  human 
thought  presents,  he  shall  have  nothing  to  fear 


304010 


FOREWORD 

of  the  war  of  words  over  debatable  subjects. 
What  is  not  true  will  fall  of  its  own  weight; 
what  is  true  and  of  God  will  stand  forever. 

E.  H.  E. 


CONTENTS 

Page 
The  Center  of  Theology    ....  1 

The  Influence  of  Paul       ....         9 

Paul's  Solution  of  the  Christ-Problem       .        l6 

The  Use  of  the  Term  God   as   Applied  to 

Jesus  ......       24 

The  Difficulties  of  Paul's  Position    .  .       SI 

The  Influence  of  the  Easter  Stories  .       35 

Value  of  the  New  Testament   in  Marking 

the  Growth  .....       45 

Worship  of  Christ  .....  50 
What  Can  We  Ascertain  Concerning  Jesus? 

The  Negative  Side  ....  56 
What  Can  We  Ascertain  Concerning  Jesus? 

The  Positive  Side  ....       68 

The  Supplement  to  History  ...  74 
The  Religion  of  Jesus  ....  84 
**LoRD,  Teach  Us  How  to  Pray"  .  .  95 
What  is  Christian  Prayer?  .  .  .105 

Prayer  to  Jesus  in    Modern  Times — Hym- 

NOLOOY  .  .  .  .  .  .111 

The  Reasons  for  Prayer  to  Jesus  .  119 

The  Case  of  the  Modern  Man  .  .135 

The  Call  of  Nature  .         .         .         .139 

What  Immanence  Contributes  to  Worship  155 
What  Jesus  is  to  Us  Today  .  .  .  l65 
The  Standard  Applied  to  Life  .  .174 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 
MODERN  CHRISTIAN 

THE    CENTER    OF    THEOLOGY 

Thoughts,  like  heavenly  bodies,  move  in 
cycles.  Periods  of  obscuration  are  followed 
by  periods  of  intense  illumination.  For  long 
seasons  an  important  truth  may  entirely  be 
cut  off  from  view  by  a  relatively  small  but 
more  immediately  important  body  of  ideas,  only 
to  burst  upon  our  astonished  gaze  with  the 
suddenness  of  a  new  discovery.  And  the  chances 
are  that  in  a  very  short  time  some  "discoverer" 
will  present  himself  with  the  triumphant  an- 
nouncement that  he  has  had  a  vision  of  a  new 
world,  and  the  public,  always  anxious  to  see 
something  new,  will  stare  and  marvel  at  the 
wonderful  progress  of  truth.  It  is  at  lihis 
point  that  the  student  of  the  past  usually  in- 
trudes to  put  the  discovery  into  the  right  light 
and  to  show  that  it  is,  most  probably,  but  the 
emergence  of  some  old,  neglected,  or  forgotten 
fact. 

In  theology  one  of  these  many  binary  systems 
of  thought  is  represented  by  the  terms  Jesus 
and  God.  The  two  extremes  express  themselves 
in  the  opposite  statements  that  theology  is  the 
science  of  God,  and  that  our  theology  must 
be  christo-centric.     That    Christ    occupies    or 


tp    »   ) 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 


ought  to  occupy  the  commanding  position  in 
the  theological  world  has  been  hailed  again  and 
again  as  the  grand  discovery  of  modem  times. 
This  is  true  not  only  of  the  so-called  devotional 
literature  of  today,  but  it  applies  to  serious 
and  ponderous  productions,  and  the  pulpits, 
from  the  metropolis  to  the  logging  camp,  re- 
peat the  news. 

In  view  of  the  urgency  with  which  this  view 
is  presented  it  becomes  absolutely  imperative 
to  examine  afresh  the  basis  of  so  far-reaching 
a  claim  and  to  see,  if  possible,  in  how  far  the 
authentic  facts  of  history  fit  themselves  into 
the  theory. 

That  the  place  of  Christ  is  at  the  very  center 
of  our  religious  life  and  thought  is  anything 
but  a  new  claim ;  the  whole  cultus  of  the  church 
gives  a  practical  demonstration  of  its  antiquity. 
It  will  be  our  business  in  the  following  pages 
to  authenticate,  approximately,  how  far  this 
tendency  is  associated  with  the  life  of  Chris- 
tianity and  how  far  it  is  justified  by  the  prac- 
tices of  its  founders  and  its  inspirer,  and  by 
the  inferences  which  the  modern  man  is  bound 
to  make  from  the  modern  conception  of  God 
and  His  universe. 

There  have  never  been  voices  wanting,  to 
tell  us  that  the  demand  that  our  theology  be 
christo-centric  grows  out  of  a  confusion  of 
terms.    And  yet  the  demand  was  a  most  natural 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  3 

one  in  the  circumstances.  Was  not  theology 
largely  responsible  for  that  mountain  of  rubbish 
that  had  been  piled  up  between  God  and  the 
soul,  cutting  off  all  means  of  communication 
with  the  other  world?  The  term  rubbish  is 
used  advisedly,  as  indicating  what  is,  in  the 
business  of  religion,  relatively  worthless,  though 
we  are  conscious  that  we  shall  never  be  able 
to  repay  the  debt  we  owe  to  past  generations 
of  sturdy  thinkers  and  path-finders  who  tried 
to  make  God  accessible  and  comprehensible  to 
man. 

Nevertheless,  the  practical  result  was  that  the 
God  so  earnestly  sought  seemed  to  recede  far- 
ther into  the  distance  with  every  fresh  attempt 
to  bring  him  down  to  earth.  The  theology 
which  eventually  proved  to  be  triumphant  and 
which,  today,  enjoys  the  prestige  of  a  solid 
following  was  the  one  that  had  put  the  trans- 
cendence of  God  at  the  head  of  its  whole  pro- 
gram. To  safeguard  that  tenet  men  were  will- 
ing to  sacrifice  much — even  the  freedom  of  the 
will  and  the  goodness  of  creation. 

In  many  quarters  the  conviction  became  irre- 
sistible that  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  universe 
was  beyond  the  reach  of  the  human  mind,  and 
the  general  apathy  of  agnosticism  made  all 
further  progress  in  that  direction  impossible. 
Science,  omniscient,  infallible,  and  brooking  no 
contradiction,  had  put  up  the  warning,  "  No 


4  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

Thoroughfare!" — and  that  had  settled  the 
matter  for  many  whose  hearts  were  hungering 
for  the  living  God. 

For  it  has  become  a  settled  conviction  that 
it  is  a  capital  crime  for  the  mind  to  trespass 
on  forbidden  ground.  Practically  all  the  con- 
fusion of  thought,  all  the  conflicts  between 
science  and  theology,  all  the  so-called  crises  in 
belief  would  have  been  avoided  if  all  the  engag- 
ing parties  had  but  kept  on  their  own  side  of 
the  fence  marking  off  the  natural  boundaries, 
and  had  refused  to  meddle  with  matters  that 
were  none  of  their  business.  Man  has  ever 
been  careless  about  observing  the  truism  that 
efficiency  in  one  department  of  intellectual 
activity  is  no  guarantee  of  a  similar  efficiency 
in  another  department  of  intellectual  activity. 
A  prince  on  one  side  of  a  line  may  make  only 
an  indifferent  hewer  of  wood  on  the  other  side. 
In  some  matters  a  humble  goat  herd  may  be  a 
better  authority  than  a  whole  ecumenical 
council. 

The  modern  mind  will  be  scientific  or  noth- 
ing. And  science  has  nothing  to  do  with  God. 
It  was  not  an  explosion  of  irreverent  bravado, 
but  a  plain  statement  of  fact,  when  the  author 
of  the  Mecanique  Celeste  told  Napoleon  that 
he  had  no  need  of  the  hypothesis  of  God.  For 
an  astronomer  to  fold  his  hands  at  a  celestial 
mystery  and  to  say  Kismet — this  is  so  because 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  6 

God  wills  it — is  simply  the  abdication  of  as- 
tronomy. One  may  try  to  judge  of  the  inten- 
tions of  the  creator  by  what  seem  to  be  the 
purposes  of  creation;  but  the  causes  to  which 
the  visible  phenomena  are  traced  have  nothing 
to  do  with  God.  Scientists  may  be  and  often 
are  ardent  theists.  A  cloud  of  witnesses  shows 
that  scientific  preeminence  is  thoroughly  com- 
patible with  a  Christian  faith;  Copernicus,  Kep- 
ler, Newton,  Faraday,  Maxwell,  Agassiz,  Von 
Baer,  Ohm,  Joule,  Maedler,  Pasteur,  Lord 
Kelvin,  the  Herschels,  De  Candolle,  Von  Lie- 
big,  Rob.  Mayer,  many  of  whom  were  strictly 
orthodox,  were  in  no  way  handicapped  by  their 
religious  beliefs.  "When  I  was  at  Cambridge," 
wrote  Romanes,  "there  was  a  galaxy  of  genius 
in  that  department  (mathematics)  emanating 
from  that  place  such  as  had  never  before  been 
equalled.  And  the  curious  thing  is  that  all  the 
most  illustrious  names  were  ranged  on  the  side 
of  orthodoxy." 

But  science,  as  science,  is  coldly  and  inevit- 
ably atheistic,  and  when  it  reaches  the  limits 
of  its  chosen  province,  permits  its  followers  to 
say  merely — Ignoramus,  and  hands  the  un- 
solved problems  over  to  the  philosopher.  This 
is  not  due  to  perversity,  but  to  the  definite 
limitations  of  which  the  mind  is  conscious, 
imposed  on  it  as  a  condition  of  intellectual  pro- 
gress.    To  a  psalmist  the  heavens  may  declare 


6  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

the  glory  of  God  and  the  earth  and  her  trea- 
sures show  his  handiwork,  to  the  devoutest  min- 
eralogist a  splendent  quartz  crystal,  the  very 
triumph  of  nature's  marvelous  molecular 
powers,  is  nothing  but  a  prism,  with  apparently 
hexagonal  pyramids,  of  the  hardness  seven,  be- 
longing to  the  rhombohedral  type,  with  weak 
double  refraction  under  crossed  nicols,  made  of 
silicon  dioxide.  And  stars  are  so  much  gas, 
and  the  iris  is  a  monocotyledon,  and  man  is 
homo  sapiens^  a  primate  mammal,  and  God  and 
man  are  of  the  same  image.  Lagrange's 
answer  to  the  bon-mot  of  sceptical  La  Place 
was  to  the  effect  that  nevertheless  God,  as  a 
hypothesis,  accounted  for  many  things.  Which 
was  perfectly  true,  only,  to  "account  for 
things"  is  rather  the  business  of  the  poet  and 
of  the  prophet,  and  they  are  abundantly  able 
to  lift  this  burden  from  the  stooping  shoulders 
of  the  less  ambitious  scientist. 

One  natural  result  of  this  division  of  labor 
in  an  age  when  the  poet  and  the  prophet  were 
at  a  discount  and  when  the  scientist  held  the 
center  of  the  stage,  was  a  lurking,  uneasy  sus- 
picion that  God  was,  perhaps,  nothing  but  an 
unnecessary  hypothesis  anyway. 

And  the  recovery  of  God  was,  for  many  a 
mind,  along  the  way  pointed  out  by  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  Heaven 
was  again  made  accessible  via  Palestine.     What 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  7 

wonder  that  men  hailed  the  new  christology 
as  a  deliverer  from  the  house  of  bondage !  Here 
was  a  veritable  Ariadne's  cord  that  promised 
salvation!  And  straightway  "christology"  be- 
came a  word  to  conjure  with. 

Furthermore,  this  new  interest,  with  all  its 
overemphasis,  afforded  a  long  overdue  relief 
from  the  entities  and  quiddities,  the  attributes 
and  proofs,  the  absolute  and  the  unconditioned, 
with  which  theology  had  been  content  to  juggle 
for  ages.  The  questions  whether  infants  dying 
before  baptism  could  be  saved,  whether  there 
was  a  devil,  whether  this  was  the  best  possible 
world,  whether  truth  was  truth  because  God 
willed  it,  gave  place  to  mightier  matters  about 
God's  intimate  relations  to  a  suffering  and  as- 
piring humanity  and  the  possibility  of  an  ap- 
proach between  the  two  parties. 

In  these  matters  Jesus  had  spoken  the  deliver- 
ing word.  What  he  had  taught  bore  the 
authority  of  truth,  though  it  contradicted  all 
the  scribes  and  pharisees.  The  finest  and 
deepest  revelation  we  have  concerning  God 
came,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  through  him.  To 
convey  this  message  from  God  to  man  consti- 
tuted, as  he  believed,  his  very  life-work.  To 
reveal  himself,  to  put  himself  at  the  center  of 
his  message,  was  utterly  foreign  to  his  habits 
of  thinking.  It  will  be  more  convenient  to 
examine  the  content  of  this  message  later  on 


8  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

(p.  84,  ff.)  ;  but  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind 
that  the  theology  of  Jesus — if  with  a  somewhat 
violent  stretch  of  words  we  may  thus  designate 
his  opinions  about  rehgion — centered  in  God. 
The  implications  of  this  are  so  far-reaching 
and  so  subversive  that  many  have  refused  to 
subscribe  to  what  seems  so  simple  and  self-evi- 
dent a  statement.  For  this  standard  will  tre- 
mendously effect  our  estimate  of  many  sayings 
about  things  not  divine  as  recorded  in  the 
gospels. 

It  is  notorious  what  the  Christian  imagina- 
tion and  pious  homage  afterwards  did  with  the 
authentic  words;  the  New  Testament  furnishes 
abundant  documentary  evidence  that  quite  early 
the  tendency  to  shift  the  emphasis  made  itself 
felt  even  among  those  who  were  most  interested 
in  preserving  the  memory  of  Jesus  and  his 
wonderful  words.  In  saying  this  we  expose 
ourselves  to  the  danger  of  being  misunderstood 
in  quarters  where  the  finding  of  "tendencies" 
has  lost  all  credit  and  where  the  fiction  is  still 
bravely  exploited  that  Baur  and  company 
busied  themselves  with  the  very  caput  mortuum 
of  criticism,  done  to  death  by  careful  scholar- 
ship and  supplied  with  a  convincing  obituary 
by  Lightfoot  and  others.  Such  corpses  have 
a  strange  fatality  about  them  in  that  they  often 
revive  when  they  seem  buried  for  good.  So, 
at    least,    it  has  happened  with    the    tendenz- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  9 

theory.  For  it  may  be  stated  with  the  utmost 
confidence  that  if  there  is  any  one  certain  re- 
sult which  we  owe  to  the  comparative  study 
of  the  gospel  narratives  it  is  the  conviction  that 
Jesus  did  not  speak  as  the  fourth  gospel  re- 
ports him  to  have  spoken.  To  make  Christ 
the  central  and  controlling  point  of  theology 
was  perfectly  in  accord  with  the  Johannine  tra- 
dition, though  it  could  be  done  only  at  the 
expense  of  the  other  traditions ;  as  a  matter 
of  fact  it  meant  putting  the  revealer  in  the 
place  of  the  revelation.  The  message  was  lost 
in  the  messenger. 

The  central  fact  of  the  redemptive  drama, 
the  very  key  and  raison  d'etre  of  the  life  and 
death  of  Jesus  is  the  revelation  that  there  is 
a  loving  God.  This  is  the  essence  of  the  good 
news.  A  christian  theology  is  impossible  with- 
out the  appreciation  of  the  truth  that  it  was 
Jesus  who  brought  this  news,  and  he  who  admits 
that  is  in  no  danger  of  ignoring  or  of  under- 
estimating the  christological  factors  of  redemp- 
tion. But  back  of  the  whole  scheme  that  cul- 
minates in  the  appearance  and  the  work  of 
Jesus  is  the  moving  force :  "  God  sent  his  Son." 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    PAUL 

Whoever  is,  in  any  way,  interested  in  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  place  of  Christ  in  the  thought  of 
today   is   obliged   to   begin   with  the   influence 


10  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

of  the  apostle  Paul.  Not  only  does  the  christian 
church  owe  to  Paul  practically  all  the  stock 
in  trade  of  christology,  not  only  are  the  tech- 
nical terms  of  theology  essentially  Pauline,  but 
in  our  attempt  to  get  at  the  real  Jesus  we  shall 
find  that  we  will  have  to  fight  our  way,  step 
by  step,  through  a  mass  of  obstructions  that 
owe  their  existence  in  large  part  to  his  writ- 
ings. It  is  an  old  story  that  Paul  had  come  to 
introduce  something  new  into  the  simple  gospel. 
For  a  long  time,  and  to  an  astonishingly  large 
proportion  of  the  early  Christians — the  judaiz- 
ing  element  in  general — Paul  was  looked  upon 
as  an  arch-heretic. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  make  a  fault  of  this. 
Paul  was,  after  all,  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood, 
not  a  coldly  calculating  machine,  grinding  out 
doctrines,  such  as  some  recent  writers  have 
pleased  to  describe  him.  The  whole  Pauline 
christology  was  built  up  to  honor  Jesus,  not 
to  bury  him.  That  he  was,  in  reality,  buried 
was  less  the  result  of  what  Paul  had  laboriously 
thought  out  than  the  result  of  the  theologi- 
cal vice  of  assuming  that  these  forms,  though 
they  were  sometimes  wofuUy  loose-jointed, 
were  the  final  and  perfect  receptacles  of  divine 
truth.  For  centuries  theology  was  pure  idola- 
try, in  which  Paul  supplanted  all  other  claim- 
ants to  the  loyalty  of  believers.  His  writings 
supplied  the   standard   of   belief.      There   was 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  11 

no  other.  What  he  said  was  final  with  the 
church.  He  was  one  of  those  fortunate,  or 
unfortunate,  men — Plato  and  Aristotle  and 
Kant  were  others — ^who  wield  such  a  power  over 
the  intellectual  activity  of  whole  eras  that  even 
their  most  ludicrous  blunders  are  surrounded 
with  a  sacrosanct  aureola.  The  time  is  not 
yet  past  when  the  student  of  religion  can  find 
his  dearest  convictions  about  Jesus  demolished 
with  the  supposedly  unanswerable,  "  But  what 
does  the  Bible  say.?"  and  find  his  mouth  stuff'ed 
with — a  quotation  from  the  epistle  to  the 
Romans ! 

One  is  led  to  wonder  what  Paul  himself  would 
have  had  to  say  to  this  sort  of  procedure.  He 
was  not  the  kind  of  a  man  to  refuse  homage 
where  homage  was  due;  he  was  not  above  us- 
ing the  tricks  of  rhetoric  himself.  It  is  sur- 
prising what  an  amount  of  space  is  consumed 
in  the  exercise  of  logical  sleight-of-hand  (note 
the  exegetical  monstrosities  in  Galatians  S  and 
4,  Romans  4  and  10,  and  I  Corinthians  9, 
with  the  rabbinical  idea  about  the  oxen!)  But 
these  were  simply  arguments  addressed  to  in- 
dividuals with  their  mental  peculiarities,  meant 
to  drive  home  some  definite  truths.  If  he  had 
foreseen  that  the  day  was  coming  when  his  own 
words  would  be  given  apodictic  value,  and  when 
his  personality  was  to  overshadow  and  to  sup- 
plant the  very  person  whom  to  proclaim  and 


12  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

to  explain  was  his  whole  life-work,  he  would, 
no  doubt,  have  refused  to  dictate  a  single  word. 
Those  are  least  true  to  Paul's  spirit  who  ima- 
gine that  he  has  spoken  the  last  word  about 
God  and  about  Jesus  Christ  and  about  sin. 

For  it  was  his  one  object  to  proclaim  Christ 
and  him  crucified;  to  do  anything  else  was,  in 
his  estimation,  a  sufficient  reason  for  those 
terrible  anathemas  which  he  was  the  first  to 
hurl  against  schismatics;  everything  else  was 
but  idle  dross  and  empty  sound.  And  yet  the 
irony  of  history  would  have  it  that  in  the  suc- 
ceeding clash  of  warring  minds  the  champion 
should  get  practically  all  the  honors,  and  the 
cause  championed  should  be  forgotten.  The 
benevolent  Caesar  obliterated  his  patrimony. 

"  When  could  they  say,  till  now,  that  talk'd  of  Rome, 
That  her  wide  walls  encompass 'd  but  one  man?" 

So  it  happened  in  the  history  of  the  church. 

The  evidential  value  of  what  Paul  believed 
and  taught  concerning  Jesus  is  determined  by 
his  own  personal  experience.  That  experience 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  historical  Jesus. 
That  may  be,  to  many,  a  hard  saying,  but  it 
is  literally  true.  Paul  begins  where  Jesus  ends. 
The  history  of  a  man's  influence  may  not  begin 
until  after  his  death,  the  history  of  the  man 
himself  ends  with  his  death.  The  death  on 
the  cross  is  the  starting  point  for  Paul's  the- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  18 

ology.  And  when  the  start  was  once  made  it 
proceeded  in  a  direction  which  was  sure  to  end, 
by  and  by,  in  what  has  been  defined  as  a  re- 
gular Christ-mythology.  The  doctrine  of 
Christ's  preexistence  overpowered  all  interest 
in  the  details  of  the  merely  human  life.  Of 
this  preexistent  state  Paul  is  sure — his  con- 
version, the  resurrection,  the  whole  scheme  of 
salvation  is  dependent  upon  its  truth.  Like 
all  fundamental  truths  it  is  taken  for  granted. 
Paul  does  not  argue  the  case;  it  is  an  axiom 
to  be  presupposed,  and  it  is  true,  it  must  be 
true,  because  it  explains  so  much  that  could 
not  be  explained  in  any  other  fashion. 

Now  it  may  be  affirmed  that  no  person  who 
had  stood  under  the  spell  of  that  wonderful 
life  as  it  developed  in  the  hill  towns  of  Galilee, 
and  which  was  cut  short  by  that  judicial  murder 
in  Jerusalem  would  ever  have  constructed  or 
been  able  to  construct  the  elaborate  machinery 
which  we  hear  creaking  through  some  of  the 
arguments  which  Paul  employs  to  unite  the 
heavenly  Christ  and  the  historical  Jesus.  The 
demand  that  is  upon  orthodoxy  to  accomplish 
this  task  is,  even  today,  responsible  for  some 
marvelous  manipulations.  And  Paul  was  a  pio- 
neer in  the  business. 

The  modem  reader  is  always  in  danger  of 
forgetting  that  Paul  knew  no  "gospels"  such 
as  have  come  down  to  us.     His  work  was  done 


14  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

long  before  the  piety  of  the  early  church  had 
collected  and  set  in  order,  as  Luke  tells  us, 
the  narrative  of  that  short  life,  tracing  "  the 
course  of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first." 
The  church  was  too  busy  to  make  literature; 
it  was  making  life.  So  he  was  unable  to  check 
off  his  speculations  and  regulate  them  with  any 
documents  which  might  have  carried  weight 
comparable  to  that  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  attach  to  the  Old  Testament.  His  persistent 
use  of  arguments  drawn  from  that  source  shows 
what  he  would  have  done  if  he  had  had  more 
than  an  ever  so  reliable  tradition,  based  on  the 
hearsay  of  men  whom  the  fourth  gospel,  which 
was  composed  under  Pauline  influences,  system- 
atically represents  as  having  misunderstood  the 
Master's  words. 

With  Paul  it  is  a  matter  of  pride,  almost, 
that  he  did  not  know  Jesus  intimately,  after 
the  flesh.  And  faith  in  him  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  actual  message  which  formed  the 
content  of  Q — the  main  source  employed  by 
the  synoptists  when  they  made  their  attempt 
to  write  "gospels".  It  would  be  simply  impos- 
sible to  deduce  a  Pauline  theology  from  the 
gospel  as  proclaimed  by  Jesus.  We  shall  find, 
on  investigation,  that  Jesus  did  not  much  con- 
cern himself  about  the  reasons  for  things  in 
general  and  faith  in  particular;  Paul  is  always 
trying  to  justify  God's  ways  with  man.     Jesus 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  16 

has  no  system  of  ethics,  all  lengthy  discussions 
on  the  subject  notwithstanding,  no  theodicee, 
no  "plan  of  salvation,"  no  philosophy  of  his- 
tory, without  all  of  which  paulinism  is  utterly 
unthinkable. 

In  one  way  this  independence  over  against 
the  actual  life  facts  was  a  priceless  blessing, 
for  it  gave  Paul  an  opportunity  to  prove  to 
all  coming  times  that  faith  in  Christ  is  not 
contingent  upon  the  acceptance  of  this  or  that 
detail  of  history,  just  as  such  details  may  fail 
to  carry  conviction,  in  spite  of  all  their  histori- 
cal vouchers.  There  is  no  danger  that  Paul 
will  ever  be  charged  with  disloyalty  to  his 
Master  and  Savior,  now  that  history  has  proved 
his  system  to  have  been  right  and  that  of  the 
judaizers  to  have  been  wrong.  And  yet  he 
is  satisfied  to  ignore  vastly  interesting  matters, 
of  which  he  must  have  heard  discussions,  matters 
which,  to  say  no  more,  were  at  least  as  impor- 
tant as  any  theory  about  justification  could 
possibly  be.  And  the  facts  that  he  seemed  to 
know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  dogma  of  the 
miraculous  birth,  that  the  colliding  accounts 
of  the  resurrection  event  gave  him  so  little 
uneasiness  that  he  didn't  even  take  the  trouble 
of  showing  why  he  believed  in  his  transub- 
stantiation  idea,  and  that  all  along  he  could 
insist  on  the  supremacy  of  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord 
over    all    solely    on  the  strength    of    his    own 


16  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

wonderful  experience  and  some  fragmentary 
bits  of  tradition:  all  this  makes  his  example 
a  factor  of  inestimable  value  to  the  apologist 
of  today  when  even  the  man  in  the  street  is  be- 
ginning to  suspect  that  the  facts  of  history  and 
the  legends  of  pseudo-history  fail  to  exhaust  the 
meaning  of  things. 

In  most  things  the  church  has  been  willing 
to  walk  as  a  captive,  chained  to  his  chariot 
wheels ;  but  it  has  refused  to  imitate  his  example 
of  acting  as  a  sovereign  over  the  innumerable 
accidentals  of  history. 

Paul's  solution  of  the  christ-problem 

The  question  as  to  what  rank  the  exalted 
Christ  (for  none  other  has  the  least  interest 
for  him)  occupies  in  Paul's  system  is  a  rather 
complicated  one.  For  he  was  a  manysided  man, 
and  fearlessly  attacked  problems  which  were 
sure  to  involve  the  most  accomplished  dialecti- 
cian in  a  tangle  of  contradiction,  some  of  which 
he  noticed  and  tried  to  remove,  while  others 
were  handed  over  to  later  times.  It  was  an 
ominous  legacy:  what  a  mass  of  expositions 
and  explanations  and  harmonizations  has  been 
piled  up  to  smooth  the  way  and  connect  the 
isolated  peaks!  Paul  was  a  mortal,  but  the 
Pauline  theology  was  inspired,  in  the  premises, 
and  the  interpreters  did  what  they  thought  their 
duty.  The  end  was  that  the  man  was  inter- 
preted out  of  existence. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  17 

This  is,  obviously,  not  the  place  to  discuss 
the  various  methods  he  used  to  help  himself, 
but  it  will  be  necessary  to  mention  a  few  of 
the  more  prominent  facts  to  show  that  even  he 
had  his  difficulties  with  the  nature  of  the  god- 
head— ^the  puzzle  that  was  soon  to  split  Chris- 
tendom into  fiercely  fighting  sections.  Paul 
was  perfectly  innocent  of  the  coming  mischief, 
the  trouble  lay  not  so  much  with  his  explana- 
tions— man  can  but  do  his  best — as  with  the 
subject.  Still,  he  had  dared  to  explain  and 
justify  God's  ways,  and  when  a  man  does  that 
he  is  sure  to  invite  trouble  upon  his  head.  It 
is  not  an  extravagance  to  say  that  it  was  he 
who  sowed  the  wind  which  soon  developed  into 
the  whirlwind  that  tore  the  churches  into  frag- 
ments. 

As  already  stated,  to  Paul  Christ's  preexist- 
ence  was  not  something  to  be  argued  and  estab- 
lished; it  is  assumed,  without  argument,  need- 
ing no  proof,  perhaps  admitting  no  proof, 
withal  so  certain  that  he  is  free  to  build  up  his 
whole  system  upon  it. 

But  this  preexistence  did  not  necessarily  in- 
volve, as  one  might  suppose,  the  idea  of  the 
divinity  of  Jesus.  As  a  learned  Pharisee,  versed 
in  Alexandrian  and  Hebrew  lore,  he  was  per- 
fectly at  home  in  the  mystical  speculations  about 
that  Being  through  whom  the  world  had  been 
made  and  which  eventually  became  the  mouth- 


18  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

piece  of  God's  messages  to  humanity.  It  was 
the  peculiarly  Jewish  hope  that  sometime  this 
Being  would  manifest  itself  on  earth.  The 
messianic  hope  and  the  doctrine  of  the  logos, 
a  word  to  be  made  flesh,  together  formed  the 
one  great  subject  for  debate  with  all  intelligent 
Jews  who  were  not  hopelessly  entangled  in  the 
business  of  building  a  hedge  around  the  law 
and  of  commenting  on  the  comments  of  the 
original  comments  of  the  rabbis. 

This  Being,  whatever  it  was,  was  distinct 
from  God,  and  yet  almost  everything  that 
could  be  predicated  of  God  could  also,  in  some 
sense,  be  applied  to  it.  The  times  were  ripe 
for  God's  messenger  to  appear,  the  kingdom 
was  at  liand.  Even  in  the  Gentile  world  there 
were  vague  anticipations,  flashes  of  prophecy 
came  from  far-off  lands  like  the  coruscations 
of  a  hot  summer  evening.  The  nations  had 
been  asking  wearily.  Watchman,  what  of  the 
night  ? 

And  lo,  here  are  rumors  of  the  wonderful 
deeds  and  the  astonishing  sayings  of  a  Gali- 
lean teacher,  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Whether  he 
ever  claimed  to  be  the  messiah  outright  is  a 
question  that  is  not  so  easily  settled  as  some 
seem  to  imagine.  Those  who  deny  that  he  did 
are  at  present  in  a  hopeless  minority,  but  they 
have  at  least  shown,  now  that  the  old  proof -text 
method  is  on  its  last  legs,  that  it  is  unsafe  to 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  19 

dogmatize  about  things  that  happened  ages 
ago.  However,  the  historical  fact  remains,  un- 
touched by  any  reasonable  doubts,  that  it  was 
as  a  messiah  that  Jesus  was  put  to  death.  The 
ideals  of  many  had  been  realized  in  him;  many 
had  hoped  that  it  was  he  who  would  redeem 
Israel — it  required  no  more  than  that  vision 
on  the  road  to  Damascus  and  the  subsequent 
study  of  what  facts  were  accessible  to  convince 
the  zealous  Saul  that  these  despised  "Chris- 
tians," were  right  in  their  claims. 

He  was  not  disobedient  to  the  heavenly  vision, 
as  he  says  in  his  defense  before  Herod  Agrippa, 
but  proclaimed  the  crucified  Jesus  as  the  glori- 
fied Christ.  Investing  the  historical  character 
with  all  the  transcendent  attributes  of  a  super- 
natural being,  he  far  outdid  even  the  disciples 
in  determining  the  lines  along  which  the  religion 
of  Christ  was  to  be  developed. 

Not  that  Paul  was  perfectly  sure  himself 
as  to  how  this  new  investiture  of  Jesus  with 
what  were  practically  divine  powers  was  to  be 
justified.  A  careful  reading  of  his  letters  can- 
not fail  to  show  that  occasionally  his  ideas 
about  monotheism  got  a  terrible  jolt.  He  was 
first  of  all  a  Jew,  then  a  Christian.  His  manip- 
ulations of  the  prepositions  in,  with,  through, 
by,  above,  his  anxiety  to  prove  a  God  over  all, 
his  carefulness  to  distinguish  between  God  and 
Christ  shows  that  in  his  own  mind  there  were 


m  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

some  difficulties  about  his  explanation  which 
were  rather  uncomfortable,  and  which  he  was 
unable  to  remove. 

No  one  can  tell  what  might  have  happened 
if  the  convenient  and  adaptable  figure  of  speech 
"Son  of  God"  had  not  offered  itself  as  a  key 
to  the  wards  of  this  complicated  lock.  Indeed, 
it  may  confidently  be  asserted  that  without  this 
phrase  a  goodly  portion  of  his  theology  would 
never  have  been  constructed.  We  are  all,  per- 
force, slaves  to  the  letter,  and  it  has  ever  been 
a  waste  of  time  to  bemoan  the  inevitable; 
trouble  arises  only  when  we  ignore  or  forget 
the   condition   of   this   bondage. 

Here  was  a  great  truth  that  needed  expres- 
sion— perhaps  ithe  most  momentous  truth  of 
which  we  can  form  any  conception — that  God 
can  have  an  active  and  vital  relation  to  his 
universe,  that  He  is  not  far  from  each  one  of 
us,  and  that  humanity  can  partake  of  His  very 
nature.  What  formula  could  best  express 
this  relation?  What  set  of  words  would  leave 
the  smallest  number  of  false  impressions? 
Where  everything  was  but  a  mere  approxima- 
tion, which  one  was  it  that  could  boast  of  the 
greatest  historical  dignity,  and  appealed  most 
intimately  to  the  halting  intelligence  of  man? 
The  term  Son  of  God  best  told  the  truth. 

This  required  no  lengthy,  metaphysical  argu- 
ment to  make  it  plausible ;  it  was  not  the  result 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  21 

of  subtle  thinking;  it  was  just  the  most  natural 
way  of  stating  the  facts.  The  son  was  bom  (a 
"son"  must  be  born,  well  understood!)  and  his 
name  was  Immanuel,  God  with  us. 

The  point  to  be  remembered  in  this  connec' 
tion  is  that  "son  of  God"  is,  for  a  Christian, 
nothing  but  a  figure  of  speech,  as  is,  in  very 
fact,  every  term  drawn  from  human  experi- 
ence and  relations  and  applied  directly  to  God. 
At  the  risk  of  being  misunderstood  one  is  forced 
to  say  this  even  of  the  personality  of  God. 
What  word  or  set  of  words  can  adequately  de- 
scribe Him.'^  Most  of  the  endless  lucubrations 
about  the  metaphysical  and  the  physical  son- 
ship  that  make  so  much  christology  a  weariness 
to  the  flesh  would  have  been  avoided  if  this  had 
been  kept  in  mind. 

Gunkel  has  given  convincing  proof  that 
wherever  the  idea  of  sons  of  God  is  introduced 
in  the  Old  Testament  we  have  the  strongest 
reasons  for  suspecting  the  influence  of  extra- 
israelitish,  i.  e.,  polytheistic  religions.  Pure 
monotheism  has  no  room  for  the  idea  that  God 
may  have  a  son,  or  a  father,  for  that  matter. 
As  for  the  term  "mother  of  God,"  consecrated 
through  long  usage,  that  would  strike  many 
Christian  believers  fully  as  irreverent  as  the 
analogous,  if  frivolous  "grandmother  of  God." 

Procreation  in  any  but  a  metaphorical  sense 
breaks  up  the  unity  of  the  godhead.     But  the 


ftSt  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

objectionable  term,  inadequate  as  it  was,  had 
to  be  used  if  there  was  to  be  any  progress  in 
the  work  of  accounting  for  the  faith  that  ani- 
mated the  early  church.  Needless  to  say,  a  va- 
riety of  ideas  found  shelter  in  this  flexible 
phrase,  ranging  all  the  way  from  the  legal  fic- 
tion of  adoption  to  the  mythological  efforts  to 
establish  a  direct  line  of  physical  descent  be- 
tween God  and  the  babe  bom  of  Mary.  For 
any  person  who  allows  a  figure  of  speech  to  run 
away  with  him  is,  like  Voltaire's  Habakkuk,  ca- 
pable of  anything,  even  of  creating  genealo- 
gies. 

With  Paul  the  title  "Son  of  God"  oscillates 
between  two  points:  1.  Christ  is  pre-existent, 
the  son  of  God  with  power  (Rom.  1,  4)  of  the 
same  nature  as  God's,  the  image  of  the  invis- 
ible God  (Col.  1,  15)  descended  from  Him,  or 
adopted  by  Him,  above  all  created  beings  in 
heaven  or  on  earth.  2.  He  is  also  different  from 
the  Father,  "and  when  all  things  have  been  sub- 
jected unto  Him  then  shall  the  Son  also  himself 
be  subjected  to  Him  .  .  .  that  God  may  be  all 
in  all."  (1  Cor.  15,  28).  What  we  are  to  Christ, 
Christ  is  to  God,  (1  Cor.  11,  3),  he  is  the  me- 
dium of  creation,  but  also  the  firstborn  of  all 
creation. 

In  the  confusion  of  these  and  many  other  at- 
tributes one  fact  stands  out  clearly  and  signifi- 
cantly :  however  near  Paul  comes  to  identifying 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  23 

the  natures  of  God  and  of  the  exalted,  glorified 
Christ,  he  cannot  get  his  pen  to  write  outright, 
Jesus  Christ  is  God.  (The  solitary  text,  Ro- 
mans 9,  5,  may  be  discussed  more  profitably 
later  on.) 

A  typical  passage  occurs  in  the  chapter  con- 
cerning things  sacrificed  to  idols,  I  Cor.  8,  4fF. 
Here  he  takes  the  ground  that  though  idols  are 
mere  simulacra,  yet  they  are,  after  a  fashion, 
something  more,  for  they  can  even  be  counted, 
there  are  many  so-called  gods — and  there  are 
many  lords  (Paul  had  no  occasion  to  deny  the 
reality  of  other  lords  in  the  course  of  this  ar- 
gument)— "yet  to  us  there  is  one  God,  the 
Father,  of  whom  are  all  things  and  we  unto 
him,  and  one  Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  through  whom 
are  all  things,  and  we  through  him." 

No  modern  exposition  could  show  more 
plainly  than  do  these  carefully  chosen  words 
that  he  is  determined  to  distinguish  between 
God  the  Father  and  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord. 

Such  passages  can  be  found  by  the  score, 
even  in  arguments  where  the  Pauline  Christ- 
theology  is  most  highly  developed,  and  they 
speak  volumes  for  the  natural  reserve  and  care- 
fulness of  a  man  who  often  gives  the  impression 
that  he  is  all  fire  and  impetuosity,  whose  main 
object  is  to  carry  his  point. 


5e4  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

THE  USE  OP  THE  TERM   GOD  AS  APPLIED  TO 
JESUS 

For  the  sake  of  completeness  it  will  be  well 
to  group  the  passages  in  the  New  Testament  in 
which  the  term  God  is  directly  applied  to  Jesus. 

That  divine  powers  and  prerogatives  are 
given  to  him  is  not  a  matter  for  debate.  And 
it  may  be  said,  quite  properly,  that  where  we 
have  the  thing  we  need  not  quarrel  about 
names.  But  the  fact  to  be  noted  is  that  in 
naming  Jesus  the  various  writers  generally  and 
instinctively  use  other  predicates  than  that  of 
God. 

The  fog  of  sundry  theological  controver- 
sies, now  happily  dissipated  in  civilized  parts, 
has  somewhat  obscured  the  real  state  of  affairs, 
and  so  the  matter  became  the  subject  of  careful 
study.  The  results  have  been  tabulated  quite 
systematically. 

These  tables  show  that  among  some  sixty  odd 
appellations  given  to  the  Master  in  the  whole 
New  Testament  "Jesus"  leads,  being  found  in 
610  places.  Then  foUow  "Christ"  (272),  "Lord'* 
(193 — of  which  the  Pauline  literature  supplies 
150),  "Son  of  God"  (77),  "Son  of  Man"  (73), 
"Our  Lord,"  with  the  addition  Jesus  Christ 
or  Christ  Jesus,  etc.  (63),  "Teacher" — ^in 
many  cases  but  a  polite  form  of  address  (40), 
"King"  (25),  "Savior"  (10).* 
•  Vid.  Studierstube  1905,  p.  20  flf. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  25 

It  must  always  remain  a  question  in  the 
minds  of  many  whether  such  word-counting  and 
word-weighing  is  worth  the  time  expended  upon 
it,  invariably  so  with  those  who  prefer  to  de- 
pend upon  their  own  intuitions  and  then  talk 
about  the  "destructive  results  of  criticism"  and 
sneer  at  theology  made  in  Germany  or  Holland 
or  Switzerland,  as  though  its  willingness  to  take 
infinite  pains  proved  it  to  be  of  an  inferior  sort, 
especially  when  its  conclusions  turn  out  to  be  a 
trifle  unconventional.  The  fact  is  that  no  sci- 
ence worth  the  name  is  possible  without  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  just  this  kind  of  painful 
drudgery.  The  main  business  of  science  is  not 
to  be  interesting,  but  to  be  accurate  even  at 
the  risk  of  becoming  dry  as  dust. 

But  the  importance  of  early  Christian  usage 
in  the  matter  of  the  naming  of  Jesus  abund- 
antly justifies  this  labor  in  this  particular  di- 
rection. There  is  no  indication  anywhere  that 
it  is  going  to  obscure  the  weightier  matters  of 
the  law  and  the  gospel. 

It  is  notable  in  the  circumstances  that  the 
term  God  as  applied  to  Jesus  is  found  to  have 
been  used  but  six  (or  five)  times. 

(1)  John  20,  28.  "Thomas  answered  and 
said  unto  him.  My  Lord  and  my  God."  The 
value  of  this  saying  will  be  determined  by  what 
is  known  to  have  been  the  consistent  policy  of 
the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  with  regard  to 


«6  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

the  personality  of  Jesus.  That  the  term  should 
be  used  only  once,  and  then  put  into  the  mouth 
of  a  Thomas,  at  that,  is  most  surprising.  The 
problem  with  John  would  be  to  explain  why  he 
does  not  use  it  oftener.  Another  factor  which 
will  have  to  be  considered  in  weighing  this  sec- 
tion of  the  gospel  is  given  in  the  conclusion, 
upon  which  there  seems  to  be  a  pretty  general 
agreement,  that  its  present  shape  is  largely  due 
to  the  quarrel  which  the  early  church  had  with 
the  docetics.  Otherwise  the  risen  Jesus  would 
probably  never  have  been  represented  as  invit- 
ing the  touch  of  the  incredulous  Thomas — only 
ten  verses  after  the  noli  me  tangere  to  Mary: 
*'Touch  me  not,  for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to 
the  Father."  The  only  reasonable  conclusion 
seems  to  be  that  in  the  interval  Jesus  has  as- 
cended unto  the  Father.  The  ascension  had 
not  robbed  the  body  of  Jesus  of  its  tangibility, 
and  that  surely  would  put  a  quietus  on  any  at- 
tempt to  show  that  he  was  only  a  seeming  man, 
with  a  make-belief  body.  Needless  to  say,  this 
ascension  has,  if  anything,  added  to  the  super- 
natural attributes  of  this  veridical  body.  It 
should  also  be  noted  that  the  "my"  of  Thomas 
modifies  and  restricts  the  meaning  of  "God." 
The  writer  does  not  make  the  unqualified  asser- 
tion that  Jesus  is  God. 

(2)  Titus  2,  13.     "Looking  for  ...  .  the 
glory  of  the  great  God  and  our  Savior  Jesus 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  27 

Christ."  Marginal  rendering:  "of  our  great 
God  and  Savior."  That  it  is  absolutely  useless 
to  base  any  argument  upon  this  verse  either  for 
or  against  the  identity  of  Jesus  Christ  with  the 
Father  is  vouched  for  sufficiently  by  the  fact 
that  interpreters  are  hopelessly  divided  as  to 
the  meaning  of  the  connective  "and."  The  ques- 
tion will  never  be  decided  on  grammatical 
grounds  so  much  as  by  the  dogmatic  preposses- 
sions for  or  against  the  doctrine  of  Christ's 
deity.  A  reference  to  any  standard  commentary 
will  show  that  the  evenly  balanced  considera- 
tions will  somehow  incline  on  the  side  of  the 
writer's  beliefs.  Commentators  are  human  be- 
ings, with  whom  the  wish  is  often  father  of  the 
thought.  The  main  argument  on  the  one  side 
centers  on  the  employment  of  one  article  for 
the  two  appellatives ;  on  the  other  side  the  gen- 
eral usage  of  the  New  Testament  is  made  deter- 
minative. The  personal  equation  of  the  re- 
spective writers  must  always  be  considered  in 
settling  the  question  to  one's  own  satisfaction. 
(3)  2  Peter  1,  1.  "The  righteousness  of  our 
God  and  (the)  Savior  Jesus  Christ."  The  un- 
mistakable marks  of  this  epistle  are  decisive 
for  placing  the  date  of  composition  in  a  time 
when  the  apostolic  tradition  concerning  Jesus 
was  beginning  to  be  colored  by  the  doctrinal 
interests  of  the  second  century.  The  late  date 
of  this  epistle  speaks  strongly  for  the  identifi- 


«8  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

cation  of  "our  God"  and  "the  Savior  Jesus 
Christ";  it  also  supplies  a  reliable  criterion 
when  one  wants  to  estimate  the  value  of  the 
phrase  as  evidence  of  apostolic  usage.  For  the 
rest,  the  grammatical  difficulties  of  interpreta- 
tion involved  in  (2)  reappear  in  the  discussion 
of  this  passage. 

(4)  Jude,  verse  25.  "To  the  only  God  our 
Savior."  This  reference  is  included  to  illustrate 
the  usage  of  the  pastoral  epistles  which  intro- 
duces the  term  savior  as  descriptive  of  God, 
found  elsewhere  only  in  the  Magnificat  (Luke 
1,  47.)  "My  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in  God,  my 
Savior."  That  Jesus  cannot  be  meant  is  plain 
from  the  context:  "To  the  only  God  our  Sa- 
vior, through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  be  glory, 
etc." 

(5)  In  Hebrews  1,  8,  the  writer  applies  an 
Old  Testament  passage  (Psalm  45,  6f.)  directly 
to  Jesus.  Christ,  the  Son,  whom  all  the  angels 
of  God  are  to  worship,  supplants  God ;  "but  of 
the  Son  he  saith,  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  forever 
and  ever,  etc."  In  other  words,  the  words  of 
a  nuptual  ode,  written  to  magnify  the  marriage 
of  a  king  to  a  beautiful  bride — a  secular  song 
that  somehow  got  into  the  canon — are  directly 
put  into  the  mouth  of  God  to  predicate  deity 
of  the  Son.  The  introduction  of  the  epistle 
is  sufficient  evidence  that  the  writer  did  not 
identify  the   Son,  through  whom  God   spoke, 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  «9 

with  very  God  himself.  The  passage  under 
consideration  is  only  a  quotation,  more  or  less 
apposite. 

(6)  We  now  come  to  the  last  and  most 
important  case,  Romans  9,  5.  "Of  whom  is 
Christ  as  concerning  the  flesh  who  is  over  all 
God  blessed  forever  amen."  This  may  be 
called  the  classic  illustration  of  the  importance 
of  commas.  What  those  words  mean  to  the 
reader  will  depend  entirely  upon  the  method 
of  punctuation  he  is  pleased  to  adopt.  The 
original  texts,  lacking  commas  and  periods, 
give  no  aid  in  deciding  the  controversy.  Is 
Christ  here  called  God  over  all,  blessed  forever.'' 
Or  are  these  words  simply  a  doxology.?  It  is 
purely  a  matter  of  interpretation;  and  the 
history  of  this  interpretation,  a  most  wearisome 
affair,  is  calculated  to  make  the  unsophisticated 
lay  reader  ask,  why  so  much  agitation  about 
nothing.?  He  cannot  be  blamed  for  refusing 
to  thresh  over  the  old  straw  yet  once  again. 
Sanday  and  Headlam  give  a  cursory  account 
of  this  history  (International  Crit.  Com.,  in 
loco)  and  their  guarded  and  qualified  conclu- 
sion is  that  "  throughout  there  has  been  no 
argument  which  we  have  felt  to  be  quite  con- 
clusive." The  following  points  deserve  con- 
sideration : 

a.  The  usage  of  Paul,  with  whom,  certainly, 
the  ascription  of  such  words  to  Christ  would 
be  abnormal. 


60  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

b.  The  usage  of  the  fathers — they  generally, 
like  most  expositors  of  the  earlier  days,  referred 
the  words  to  Christ. 

c.  The  astonishing  suddenness  with  which 
Christ  is  made  God  over  all — which  is  the  last 
thing  Paul,  or  for  that  matter,  any  other  New 
Testament  writer  would  think  of. 

d.  The  appropriateness  or  inappropriateness 
of  a  doxology  in  this  place,  both  sides  finding 
their  champions. 

The  upshot  of  the  whole  controversy  is  noth- 
ing but  a  grand  Perhaps.  Perhaps  Paul  had 
Christ  in  mind,  perhaps  he  was  true  to  his 
principle  recorded  in  all  his  epistles,  and  re- 
fused, here,  too,  to  break  his  rule.  At  the  most, 
the  words  would  be  the  expression  of  a  dithy- 
rambic  mood,  forming  the  climax  of  one  of  his 
most  exalted  declarations,  which  might  well  end 
with  a  fervid  Amen !  That  the  statement  is  a  de- 
liberate pronouncement  concerning  the  identity 
of  Christ  and  God  few  would  care  to  assert. 

It  is  rather  significant  that  in  every  case 
where,  by  any  stretch  of  interpretation,  the 
term  God  is  applied  to  Jesus,  the  risen,  glorified 
Christ  is  meant;  i.  e.,  the  practice  finds  no  justi- 
fication in  the  usage  of  the  disciples  during 
the  life-time  of  the  Master.  The  conviction 
that  found  utterance  in  these  and  similar  terms 
was  the  result  of  subsequent  thinking,  of  a 
constructive  theological  tendency,  and  as  such 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  31 

was  aU  but  certain  to  intrude  itself  into  the  rec- 
ords of  the  early  church. 

As  an  argument  to  be  used  by  those  who 
are  interested  in  establishing  the  position  that 
the  New  Testament  writers  refuse  to  attribute 
deity  to  Christ,  the  value  of  these  facts  is, 
of  course,  nil;  but  they  show,  emphatically, 
how  circumspect  these  annalists  and  workers 
and  thinkers  were  when  it  became  a  question 
of  substituting  the  newly  found  messiah  for 
the  God  of  their  fathers.  In  this,  as  in  so 
many  other  matters  that  seem  so  strange  if 
not  inconceivable  to  the  western  mind,  they  re- 
mained true  to  the  instincts  of  their  Jewish 
nationality.  A  pure  Greek  or  a  pure  Hindoo, 
explicating  the  mysteries  of  a  Greek  or  an 
Indian  Christ,  would  have  found  his  difficulties 
and  his  scruples  in  entirely  different  quarters. 

THE     DIFFICULTIES     OF    PAUl's    POSITION 

Paul's  task  was  to  unite  the  heavenly  Christ 
and  the  earthly  Jesus,  and  that  could  be  done 
only  at  the  expense  of  the  one  or  the  other. 
That  he  failed  to  complete  the  task  is  proved 
by  the  history  of  heresies  and  contradictory 
christologies  which  are  not  the  most  engaging 
episodes  in  Christianity.  It  is  most  significant 
that  Paul  could  be  quoted  in  opposite  camps, 
as  holding  mutually  exclusive  opinions. 

The  dilemma  he  had  to  face  may  be  stated 


82  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

thus:  If  Christ  was  to  save  man  from  sin  he 
had  to  be  true  man,  with  a  definite,  real  experi- 
ence of  the  power  of  sin.  If  Christ  was  "  very 
God  of  God"  he  could  not  have  had  such  an 
experience.  And  yet  humanity  was  to  be  saved 
— through  Christ,  the  Christ  that  was  more 
than  man !  This  contradiction  shows  that  even  a 
Paul  found  it  impossible  to  unite  God  and  man, 
and  we  shall  have  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  the 
fact  that,  in  the  matter  of  the  incarnation,  he 
failed  to  reach  solid  ground.  His  own  confes- 
sion was,  "For  now  we  know  in  part." 

The  nearest  he  came  to  a  solution  was  in 
the  much  discussed  Philippians  2,  6-11.  Here 
was  a  splendid  opportunity  to  express  himself 
unequivocally  on  the  nature  of  Christ.  The 
involved  turn  "  who,  existing  in  the  form  of 
God  etc."  would  never  have  occurred  to  any- 
one whose  belief  could  be  expressed  in  a  simple 
"who,  being  (a)  God — became  a  man."  The 
exhortation  is  that  the  Philippians  cultivate 
a  humble,  lowly  frame  of  mind.  If  the  self- 
emptying  process  of  one  having  the  form  of 
God  and  sharing  equal  honors  with  God  is 
a  good  example  (have  this  mind  in  you — )  a 
forterioriy  the  incarnation  of  a  God  would  have 
been  a  better  example.  Or,  to  approach  the 
subject  from  the  other  side:  supposing  that 
the  real  humanity  of  Christ  was  the  issue — and 
with  Paul  the  becoming  "flesh"  was  a  real  de- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  33 

basement — who  would  be  satisfied  with  speak- 
ing of  the  form  of  a  slave,  the  likeness  of  men, 
and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man?  Doesn't 
the  language  show  that  Paul  had  something 
in  reserve  which  could  not  be  predicted  of  a 
real  man,  or  of  a  real  God?  Was  not  this 
another  one  of  those  unfathomable  mysteries? 

Later  generations,  that  could  not  boast  of 
producing  men  with  the  splendid  acumen  of  a 
Paul,  could  hardly  be  blamed  for  taking  refuge 
in  docetism,  in  which  the  real  humanity  evapor- 
ated into  a  specter,  in  which  the  manhood  of 
Jesus  was  but  an  illusion  and  a  sham;  or  for 
getting  enmeshed  in  the  doctrine  of  the  gnostics, 
according  to  which  the  "heavenly  Christ"  in- 
habits the  man  Jesus  for  a  while  and  forsakes 
him  just  before  death.  Both  notions  were 
objectionable,  for  the  one  involved  a  fraud  and 
the  other  involved  a  mere  makeshift.  But  they 
were  almost  respectable  compared  with  the  later 
absurdity  which  flowered  out  in  the  idea  that 
Jesus  was  both,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  God 
who  could  know  and  do  and  be  all  things,  and 
man  who  could  not  know  and  do  and  be  all 
things.  One  could  at  least  attach  some  mean- 
ing to  the  docetic  and  gnostic  positions. 

At  all  events,  according  to  this  passage  in 
the  epistle  to  the  Philippians  the  elevation  to 
divine  glory  did  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  take 
place  until  after  the  death.    "  He  humbled  him- 


34  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

self,  becoming  obedient  even  unto  death,  yea, 
the  death  of  the  cross.  Wherefore  also  God 
highly  exalted  him."  The  exaltation  follows 
the  debasement.  Here  the  distinction  becomes 
prominent,  once  more,  and  is  carried  through 
to  the  end.  Jesus  receives  a  new  name,  the 
name  Lord,  which  is  the  badge  of  his  new 
sovereignty,  which  forms  the  content  of  the  new 
creeds  and  all  this  is  done — "  to  the  glory  of 
God  the  Father:"  so  Paul  concludes  and  saves 
his  monotheism.  The  road  was  a  difficult  one, 
but  it  ended  aright. 

This  predicate  of  Lord  (kyrios)  is  more  than 
a  polite  or  dignified  form  of  address.  As  a 
title  it  is  destined  to  receive  a  religious  signifi- 
cance. Everything  we  associate  with  worship, 
with  adoration  is  given  with  this  name. 

Of  course,  this  name,  which  is  over  all  names, 
was  bound  to  cast  its  rays  of  glory  over  the 
records  which  we  owe  to  the  loyalty  of  the 
early  church.  Virgin-birth  stories  were  inevit- 
able in  the  circumstances.  Anyone  acquainted 
with  the  penchant  of  antiquity  for  such  stories 
and  with  the  naive  willingness  of  the  human 
imagination  to  account  for  anything  unusual 
in  an  unusual  way,  would  find  it  harder  to 
explain  the  absence  of  any  efi^orts  in  this 
direction  than  their  appearance,  in  so  beauti- 
ful and  dignified  a  setting,  in  the  Christian  doc- 
uments.     Where  a    virgin-birth    is  missing — 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  36 

— John  seems  to  know  nothing  of  it — ^the  idea 
of  the  incarnate  Logos,  which  is  God,  more 
than  takes  its  place. 

In  the  phrase  Jesus  Christ,  the  Lord,  is 
couched  not  only  the  original  creed  of  the  new 
church,  but  it  supplies  the  starting  point  for 
the  theology  of  a  new  cult.  We  are  here  on 
the  track  of  a  new  movement.  Paul  foretells 
the  time  when  all  knees  shall  bow  at  that  name. 
The  first  person  who  did  that  after  the  death 
of  Jesus — during  the  lifetime  the  act  of  wor- 
ship was  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  a 
specially  reverent  form  of  homage  and  greet- 
ing— ^marked  the  birth  of  that  new  religion 
which  to  this  day  the  majority  of  Christians 
wiU  admit  to  be  the  only  true  and  legitimate 
Christianity,  the  Christianity  which  accepts 
Jesus  Christ  as  the  object  of  religion. 

Paul's  letters  record  the  attempt  to  bridge 
the  hiatus  between  the  old  religion  and  the  new 
by  means  of  a  theology,  and  to  justify  the 
innovation.  It  was,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
a  hard  task;  but  no  man  was  better  equipt  to 
undertake  it,  and  it  is  highly  improbable  that 
the  human  mind  can  get  much  nearer  to  a  solu- 
tion of  it  than  he  did. 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    EASTER    STORIES 

What  part  did  the  belief  in  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus   play  in  this  new  movement.?     This 


36  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

might  be  answered  in  a  single  word:  it  is  not 
at  all  stretching  things  to  say  that  without 
this  belief,  the  Christian  church  would  never 
have  been  born.  A  Christianity  is  possible  with- 
out it;  historical  Christianity  is  unthinkable 
without  it. 

The  documents  of  the  New  Testament  were 
all  composed  under  the  influence  of  the  con- 
viction that  the  cross  and  the  tomb  had  been 
vanquished  and  that  Jesus  lived  in  a  physical 
sense.  There  is  not  a  single  exception.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  imagine  that  at  least  the  primitive 
gospel  of  Mark  is  free  from  the  compelling 
charm  which  this  fixed  idea  exerted  on  the 
members  of  the  early  Christian  community.  The 
second  gospel  is  much  more  than  a  bald  narra- 
tive of  what  happened  during  the  lifetime  of 
Jesus.  We  may  refuse  to  speculate  on  the 
mooted  question  of  the  lost  conclusion;  but  its 
very  introduction  reveals  the  theological  ten- 
dency :  "  The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  As  we  have  seen, 
Paul's  interest  lies  in  the  aggrandizement  of 
the  risen  glorified  Christ.  And  a  John  without 
the  miraculous  element  that  culminates  in  the 
resurrection  from  the  grave  would  be  like  the 
proverbial  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out 
entirely. 

It  would  be  misleading  to  say  that  the  gospels 
are  the  creation  of  the  early   church,   and  it 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  37 

would  be  inaccurate  to  say  that  the  church  is 
the  product  of  the  gospels;  both  church  and 
gospels  are  the  precipitate  (the  one  through 
Paul  and  the  others,  indirectly,  through  the 
band  of  disciples)  of  that  atmosphere  that  was 
charged  with  the  belief  in  the  continued,  post- 
mortem presence  of  Jesus.  Jesus  was  daily 
proving  his  power  as  the  very  Son  of  God;  the 
church  was  a  living  testimony  declaring  him 
to  be  such,  with  power,  "  through  the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead." 

This  is  the  all  but  unanimous  opinion  of  the 
students  of  all  schools. 

With  the  birth  of  the  new  church  came  a 
new  worship.  This  worship  centered,  naturally, 
in  the  risen  Lord.  "  One  effect  of  the  resur- 
rection was  to  develop  so  exalted  a  conception 
of  Christ  in  the  Church  that  homage  which 
cannot  be  distinguished  from  worship,  came  to 
be  addressed  to  him."  (Hasting's  Bible  Dic- 
tionary, article  'Worship.') 

Suggesting  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
the  belief  in  the  resurrection  which  effected  this 
revolution  rather  than  the  resurrection  itself, 
which  quite  early  met  its  denier s,  we  cannot 
see  how  else  the  Christian  religion  is  to  be 
explained.  All  other  attempts  have  met  the 
same  fate  which  overtook  Gibbon's  famous,  or 
rather  notorious,  "causes."  He,  it  will  be  re- 
called, was  content  to  believe  that  the  Christian 


38  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

faith  vanquished  the  other  established  religions 
for  five  reasons.  These  were:  1.  The  zeal 
of  the  Christians.  2.  The  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality. 3.  The  miracles  attributed  to  the  church. 
4.  The  purity  of  the  Christian  morality.  6. 
The  political  power  of  the  Christian  state.  All 
these  he,  indeed,  admitted  to  be  but  secondary 
causes,  and  history,  confessedly,  has  nothing 
to  do  with  any  others;  but  even  on  his  plan 
he  failed  to  go  back  far  enough.  There  were 
powerful  principles,  beliefs,  standards,  influ- 
ences, purposes,  but  all  of  them,  put  together, 
would  have  failed  to  explain  Christianity  with- 
out the  life  of  Jesus. 

It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  this 
conviction  that  Jesus  had  risen,  taken  as  a 
historical  fact,  rests  on  quite  different  grounds 
from  that  which  supports  any  theory  of  the 
resurrection  proper,  not  to  mention  any  bodily 
coming  out  of  the  tomb  on  the  third  day 

There  are  few  controversies  that  have  suffered 
from  worse  confusion  than  the  one  dealing  with 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  On  the  one  hand 
are  those  who  insist  that  if  Jesus  did  not 
(bodily)  rise  from  the  tomb  "  our  faith  is  in 
vain."  On  such  an  assumption  giving  up  the 
belief  in  the  empty  tomb  is  equivalent  to  a 
denial  of  the  central  fact  of  Christianity.  It 
is  an  honored  and  honorable  company  of  in- 
telligent and  consecrated  men  that  have  drawn 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  39 

upon  all  the  resources  of  scholarship  and  piety 
and  tradition  to  establish  this  position. 

On  the  other  hand  are  those  who  are  unable 
to  admit  that  the  documents  warrant  such  a 
belief,  much  as  they  might  like  to  accept  it. 
With  them  it  is  simply  a  question  of  evidence, 
and  they  aver  that  the  evidence  is  not  strong 
enough.  And  in  support  of  their  view  they 
point  to  a  mountain  of  difficulties  that  stands 
in  the  way  of  making  the  traditional  belief 
plausible.  They  will,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
insist  that  Christianity  rests  on  a  rather  pre- 
carious foundation  if  it  rests  on  a  tomb,  be  it 
empty  or  not. 

It  is  only  in  recent  years  that  one  has  been 
able  to  study  the  matter  objectively,  without 
incurring  the  acrid  opposition  of  those  de- 
fenders of  the  faith  who  were  prone  to  look 
upon  all  negative  results  as  the  outgrowth  of 
skeptical  prejudice.  It  used  to  be  the  fashion 
to  asseverate  that  those  who  denied  the  reality 
of  the  physical  resurrection  did  so  simply  be- 
cause they  had  no  use  for  miracles.  But  the 
very  fact  that  the  negative  school  inevitably 
substituted  one  set  of  difficulties  by  another 
soon  made  that  fashion  supremely  ridiculous.  It 
became  evident  to  all  parties  that  there  was  no 
getting  rid  of  mysteries.  It  only  remained 
to  decide  which  explanation  was  most  in  accord- 
ance with  the  data  available.     The  tactics  that 


40  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

depended  on  calling  all  vision  theories  fraudu- 
lent, mythical,  hypocritical,  delusive,  utterly 
failed  to  discredit  the  various  objections  made 
to  the  traditional  belief.  It  was  discovered 
that  calling  names  settled  no  arguments.  Also 
it  was  discovered  that  the  theory  of  deliberate 
hardening  of  hearts,  and  selfwilled  blindness 
ran  counter  to  all  psychology.  Men  do  not 
shut  their  eyes  to  obvious  truth — because  they 
cannot  do  so. 

One  fact  stands  out  clearly,  whatever  a 
patient  textual  criticism  will  establish  in  the 
end:  it  is  only  as  a  matter  of  faith  that  the 
man  of  today  will  accept  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus.  If  he  is  not  willing  to  acknowledge  the 
life  of  the  Lord  as  a  continuous  presence  in 
his  own  soul  no  amount  of  documentary  evi- 
dence, and  be  it  a  hundred  times  more  reliable 
than  the  evidence  in  hand,  will  drive  him  to 
the  conclusion  that  Jesus  came  out  of  the  tomb. 
He  will  say,  "  If  I  see  a  man  living  he  need 
give  me  no  evidence  that  he  was  bom."  Any- 
way, a  resurrection  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago  is  far  from  being  a  proof  that  Christ  is 
living  today. 

Now  it  is  not  strictly  accurate  to  say  that 
this  is  a  belief  in  the  resurrection.  By  resur- 
rection is  generally  meant  the  restoration  to 
life  of  what  had  died — the  body.  "  I  believe 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  hody^'  is  redundant. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  41 

It  is  only  the  body  that  can  be  resurrected. 
Very  few  Christians  today  believe  that  the  soul 
needs  a  resurrection.  And  in  this  connection 
it  will  be  profitable  to  keep  in  mind  that  to 
the  modern  the  term  spiritual  body  is  wellnigh 
meaningless,  signifying  about  as  much  as  a 
white  sound  or  a  ten  pound  imagination.  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  who  certainly  cannot  be  cited 
as  prejudiced  against  any  of  the  authenticated 
facts  of  spiritism  calls  (Substance  of  Faith, 
p.  114)  a  spiritual  body,  "an  unknown,  hypo- 
thetical entity."  Besides  that,  the  life  and 
the  influence  of  Christ's  spirit  is  not  a  matter 
that  need  be  documented  and  verified  as  a  fact 
in  history,  somewhat  after  the  order  of  his 
death — ^the  whole  history  of  Christianity  offers 
itself  as  a  proof. 

But  the  evidence  for  such  a  unique  event 
as  Jesus'  coming  out  of  the  tomb,  on  the  third 
day,  will  have  to  be  something  entirely  different 
to  carry  conviction  to  an  unbelieving  mind. 
It  may  be  that  no  amount  of  evidence,  short  of 
actual  experience,  would  be  sufficient  to  anyone 
who  has  elevated  the  inviolability  of  natural 
law  into  an  axiom  of  his  thinking.  It  surely 
is  a  rash  statement,  not  supported  by  the  facts, 
to  say  that  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  viz.  from 
the  tomb,  on  the  third  day,  is  one  of  the  best 
attested  facts  of  history.  The  voluminous 
polemical  literature  that  has  grown  up  around 


42  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

this  "fact"  is  abundant  evidence  that  this  is 
not  so.  Men  do  not  write  libraries  to  prove 
that  once  upon  a  time  Hannibal  crossed  the 
Alps  or  that  the  sun  shines  in  the  sky. 

As  for  the  obnoxious  contraditions  in  the 
records,  though  they  have  obviously  received 
more  than  their  share  of  attention,  they  are 
anything  but  disposed  of  as  yet.  It  still  re- 
mains true  what  Lessing  wrote  in  1778  in  his 
polemic  against  Goetze  on  the  Wolfenbuettel 
Fragments — a  polemic  that  is  as  lively  read- 
ing today,  as  such  things  go,  as  it  ever  was. 
The  words  are  notable. 

"  Die  Fragmente  meines  Ungenannten  enthal- 
ten  so  mancherlei  Dinge,  welche  mein  Bischen 
Scharfsinn  und  Gelehrsamkeit  gehoerig  aus- 
einander  zu  setzen,  nicht  zureicht.  Ich  sehe  hier 
und  da,  auf  tausend  Meilen,  keine  Antwort. 
Mcine  Bewunderung,  ein  solches  Werk  nicht 
gekannt  zu  haben,  kann  nur  durch  die  andere 
Verwunderung  uebertrofFen  werden,  wenn  man 
mir  zugleich  auch  ein  Werk  nennt,  worin  Das 
alles  schon  seine  Abfertigung  erhalten,  welches 
ich  eben  so  wenig  gekannt  haette.  Auch  eben 
so  wenig  noch  kenne." 

That  the  rationalist  argument  to  the  effect 
that  because  the  records  contradict  each  other, 
therefore  the  resurrection  report  is  incredible,  is 
invalid,  goes  without  saying,  today. 

Taken  all  in  all  it  is  most  in  keeping  with 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  43 

the  actual  condition  of  things  to  admit  that 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  a  mystery. 

As  a  matter  of  history,  the  faith  of  the 
primitive  church  did  not  depend  upon  the  con- 
viction that  the  tomb  was  empty.  The  evidence 
for  that  part  of  the  Easter  story  rests,  mainly, 
upon  the  testimony  of  the  women  who  went 
out  of  Jerusalem  among  the  rock-tombs  on  the 
morning  of  the  third  day,  and  it  is  not  at  all 
certain  that  the  women  were  correct  in  their 
inference  that  the  Lord  was  risen,  nor  is  it 
certain  that  they  had  made  no  mistake  about 
the  whereabouts  of  the  actual  tomb,  among 
so  many,  where  the  body  had  been  deposited. 
Some,  we  read,  did  not  believe  the  story,  any- 
way. 

The  faith  of  the  church,  of  Peter  and  Paul 
and  all  the  rest,  depended  upon  the  fact  that 
Jesus  was  seen  after  his  death.  The  empty 
tomb  argument  becomes  prominent  only  in  the 
controversial,  apologetic  literature  of  later 
times ;  when  the  apostles  wanted  to  asseverate 
their  belief  that  Jesus  lived  it  was  generally 
with  an  emphatic  "and  he  was  seen." 

Accordingly  the  tomb  retired  into  the  back- 
ground, and  what  happened  there  will  probably 
never  be  settled,  conclusively,  on  textual 
grounds.  The  subject  will  continue  to  exercise 
all  who  are  interested  in  the  doctrinal  aspects 
of  Christianity,  but  as  a  point  to    be    settled 


44  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

by  the  historian  it  will,  to  judge  by  past  re- 
sults, be  left  hanging  in  the  air.  It  is  more  in 
harmony  with  these  actual  results  for  us  to 
say,  as  Du  Bois  Reymond  once  said  in  another 
connection,  we  do  not  know,  and  shall  not  know, 
this  side  of  the  grave,  than  to  speak  about 
"best  attested  facts  in  history." 

The  historical  "evidence"  may  be  the  cause 
of  the  belief  of  some;  it  may  be  the  result  of 
that  belief;  it  is  too  late  to  determine  which. 
Lake  (p.  252f.)  puts  the  case  thus:  "Those 
who  still  believe  in  the  necessity  (that  the  resur- 
rection must  imply  an  empty  tomb)  are  justi- 
fied in  making  the  same  inference  (made  by 
the  women  and  the  evangelists)  but  those  of 
us  who  believe  that  the  resurrection  need  not 
imply  an  empty  tomb  are  justified  in  saying 
that  the  narrative  might  have  been  produced 
by  causes  in  accordance  with  our  belief,  and 
that  the  inference  of  the  women  is  one  which 
is  not  binding  on  us.  The  empty  tomb  is  for 
us  doctrinally  indefensible  and  is  historically 
insufficiently  accredited." 

Whatever  be  the  explanation  adopted  by  the 
reader,  the  fact  remains  that  the  disciples  be- 
came convinced  that  their  Lord  lived.  This 
conviction  rested  upon  what  was  to  them  per- 
fectly reliable  evidence.  There  was  always  the 
possibility  that  they  might  have  made  some 
mistakes   about   the  details;   and  if   the  body 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  46 

never  came  out  of  the  grave  it  would  still  be 
a  gross  exaggeration  to  say,  it  would  be  a  mon- 
strous falsehood  to  say,  that  the  Christian  re- 
ligion is  founded  on  a  delusion  or  a  fraud. 
But  there  was  no  doubt  about  the  one  essential. 
When  Jesus  walked  with  them  on  the  shores 
of  Lake  Tiberias  and  over  the  rolling  fields  of 
Galilee  they  had  confided  their  most  secret 
thoughts  to  him,  and  looked  to  him  in  their 
needs  and  obeyed  his  every  gesture.  His  death 
on  the  cross  had  robbed  them  of  the  bodily 
presence;  but  now  that  they  were  certain  that 
his  death  need  not  change  their  relations,  what 
more  natural  than  that  they  should  continue 
to  confide  in  him,  to  ask  him  for  advice  and 
guidance?  The  miracle  of  Easter — for  such 
it  was  to  them,  and  not  a  perfectly  normal, 
anticipated  event — ^translated  their  veneration 
for  the  Master  into  a  higher  power.  We  wit- 
ness the  birth  of  a  new  cultus  in  which  the 
historical  Jesus,  who  had  died  an  ignominious 
death,  is  supplanted  by  the  glorified  Christ. 

VALUE    OF    THE    NEW    TESTAMENT    IN    MARKING 
THE   GROWTH 

It  is  comparatively  easy  to  trace  the  growth 
of  this  new  practise  through  the  pages  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  fourth  gospel  gives  a 
vivid  picture  of  what  the  primitive  community 
soon  learned  to  think  and  teach  about  Jesus. 


46  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

It  is  useless  to  speculate  as  to  what  may  turn 
out  to  be  the  final  and  acceptable  decision  re- 
specting the  authorship  of  that  wonderful 
gospel — agreement  on  the  subject  seems  no 
nearer  at  hand  than  it  was  in  1792  when  E. 
Evanson  published  The  Dissonance  of  the  Four 
generally  received  Evangelists ;  but  even  among 
those  who  feel  constrained  to  accept  the  re- 
ceived tradition  that  John  is  a  veritable  aposto- 
lic writing  there  is  practical  unanimity  that 
it  is  more  valuable  as  a  witness  for  what  the 
early  Christians  thought  about  Jesus  than  as  a 
reliable  account  of  his  life. 

But  John  is  not  the  only  theologizing  book 
in  the  New  Testament.  Even  the  most  sober 
chronicler  is  unable  to  escape  the  influences  of 
his  time,  and  they  will  leave  their  traces  in 
his  record.  The  question  concerning  the  amount 
of  this  influence  is  at  present  one  of  the  hotly 
debated  points  in  academic  circles,  where  the 
synoptic  problem  has  lost  nothing  of  its  old- 
time  attractiveness.  Every  history,  even  the 
most  cautious,  presents  a  double  record,  one 
of  the  time  which  it  describes  and  another  of 
the  time  in  which  it  was  written ;  and  the  second, 
with  all  its  elusiveness,  may  be  the  more  import- 
ant of  the  two.  A  third  factor  looms  up  with 
the  reminder  that  a  number  of  hands  were  busy 
and  a  number  of  objects  pursued  before  some 
of  these  writings  assumed  the  shape  in  which 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  47 

they  have  finally  come  down  to  us.  Each  hand 
has  left  its  mark,  each  purpose  its  hint.  To 
unravel  this  skein  of  many  colored  silks  re- 
quires patience,  reverence,  and  sympathy,  and, 
last  but  not  least,  the  historic  sense  which  can 
distinguish  where  a  color-blind  eye  sees  nothing 
but  a  monotonous  gray. 

The  subject  fairly  bristles  with  questions.  We 
simply  advert,  once  more,  to  the  fact  that  Mark 
himself  was  caught  up  in  the  currents  of 
thought  that  swept  over  the  Jewish  world  be- 
fore the  year  70.  And  what  can  be  said  of 
Mark  must  be  said,  only  with  assurance  made 
a  hundredfold  more  sure,  of  Matthew  and  of 
Luke.  One  illustration  will  be  sufficient  to  char- 
acterize the  spirit  that  controlled  the  writers. 

The  risen  and  ascending  Jesus  is  represented 
by  Matthew  as  giving  his  disciples  final  in- 
structions concerning  their  subsequent  life- 
work. 

"  And  Jesus  came  to  them  and  spake  unto 
them,  saying,  All  authority  hath  been  given 
unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go  ye  there- 
fore and  make  disciples  of  all  nations,  baptiz- 
ing them  into  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of 
the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  teaching  them 
to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  commanded 
you;  and  lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto 
the  end  of  the  world."  (Matthew  28,  18-20.) 

In  this  so-called  great  commission  the  follow- 


48  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

ing  points  stand  out  distinctly:  a.  Jesus  is 
made  to  claim  that  all  authority  in  heaven  and 
on  earth  is  henceforth  vested  in  him.  b.  A 
definite  program  of  making  converts  is  an- 
nounced, c.  The  whole  world  is  to  be,  from  now 
on,  the  theatre  of  missionary  effort,  d.  Baptism 
is  enjoined  upon  the  new  converts,  e.  This 
baptism  is  to  be  administered  in  the  name  of 
the  Trinity,  f.  Jesus  makes  himself  the  center 
of  the  body  of  truth  to  be  taught,  g.  He 
promises  his  spiritual  presence  to  his  disciples 
to  the  end  of  the  time.  ("  The  Lord  is  the 
Spirit.") 

It  may  be  that  the  command  to  baptize  is 
an  interpolation.  The  persistent  use  by  Euse- 
bius  of  a  formula  which  omits  all  reference  to 
baptism  has  been  held  to  be  a  sufficient  rea- 
son why  we  should  suspect  the  accuracy  of  the 
manuscripts  that  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
which  all  agree  in  inserting  the  command.  But 
apart  from  this  questionable  point  and  the  con- 
current evidence  that  baptism  in  the  early  years 
of  the  church  was  in  the  name  of  Christ  and 
not  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  the  passage 
is  certainly  a  most  astonishing  pronouncement 
if  it  is  assumed  to  come  directly  from  the  lips 
of  Jesus.  It  contains,  in  nuce,  the  whole  pro- 
gram of  primitive  Christianity.  It  is  the  charter 
of  a  full-fledged  church,  created  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  and  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Lord  of  all. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  49 

Nothing  could  more  plainly  show  the  purpose 
animating  the  writers,  unless  it  be  what  is  prob- 
ably the  original  conclusion  of  the  fourth 
gospel :  "  Many  other  signs  therefore  did  Jesus 
in  the  presence  of  His  disciples,  which  are  not 
written  in  this  book;  but  these  are  written  in 
order  that  ye  may  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  in  order  that  be- 
lieving ye  may  have  life  in  His  name." 

It  is  a  task  which  still  remains  to  be  done 
thoroughly,  to  show  how  this  one,  confessed 
plan  runs  through  the  gospels,  determining  the 
choice  of  material  and  the  use  made  of  it,  the 
omissions  made  here  and  there,  the  repetitions 
and  inversions  and  variations  abounding  in  the 
record.  Such  a  study  would  establish  convinc- 
ingly how  far  the  gospels  are  removed  from 
being  "lives  of  Christ."  History,  as  a  science, 
does  not  purpose  the  promulgating  of  definite 
beliefs  or  the  religious  betterment  of  its  devo- 
tees; it  just  states  available  facts  orderly  and 
draws  the  necessary  conclusions. 

All  this,  however,  does  not  alter  the  fact 
that,  on  the  whole,  the  documents  are  suffici- 
ently complete  and  thoroughly  reliable  as  a  rec- 
ord of  how  deeply  the  compelling  character  of 
Jesus  has  affected  the  apostolic  church.  They 
are  priceless  as  witnesses  to  the  influence  of  his 
words  and  example,  and  when  the  largest  deduc- 
tions have  been  made  the  impression  still  remains 


60  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

that  those  writers  got  nearer  to  the  real  Jesus 
and  his  spirit  than  is  possible  to  the  most 
penetrating  mind  of  today,  equipt  with  all  the 
apparatus  criticus  of  the  schools.  This  ap- 
plies, too,  to  the  letters  of  Paul.  With  all 
their  speculation  and  dogmatizing,  much  of 
which  is  foreign  to  our  habits  of  thought,  they 
come  out  of  the  furnace  of  criticism  practically 
unscathed.  And  whatever  doubts  may  still  at- 
tach to  any  picture  of  the  Master,  reconstructed 
out  of  the  materials  of  the  narratives,  all  such 
doubt  dissolves  into  thin  air  when  the  matter 
of  primitive  Christian  belief  is  discussed.  The 
picture  of  the  church,  what  there  is  of  it,  is 
trustworthy.  What  does  it  tell  us  about  the 
new,  to  a  Jew,  revolutionary,  departure  that 
expresses  itself  in  Christ-worship.? 

WORSHIP  OF   CHRIST 

To  begin  with,  a  new  element  presents  it- 
self in  the  prayer  that  is  offered  to  God  "  in 
the  name  of  Jesus."  John  16,  23f.  establishes 
this  usage :  "  If  ye  shall  ask  anything  of  the 
Father,  He  will  give  it  you  in  My  name; 
Hitherto  have  ye  asked  nothing  in  My  name: 
ask,  and  ye  shall  receive,  that  your  joy  may  be 
made  full."  And  verse  26 :  "  In  that  day  ye 
shall  ask  in  My  name,"  followed  by  the  signifi- 
cant rejection  of  all  thoughts  of  intercession, 
"  and  I  say  not  unto  you  that  I  will  pray  the 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  51 

Father  for  you;  for  the  Father  himself  loveth 
you,"  and,  consequently  needs  no  transmitter 
to  hear  the  prayer.  Petitions  to  be  heard  for 
the  sake  of  Jesus  becomes  possible  only  after 
the  idea  that  the  ineffable  life  has  a  propitia- 
tory influence  with  God  has  become  fully  de- 
veloped. 

It  was  an  enormous  stride  when  the  first 
Christian  offered  his  prayer  directly  to  the 
exalted  Jesus.  This  act  marked  the  beginning 
of  a  new  religion,  the  Christian  religion. 

Such  an  event  does  not  happen  every  day. 
Just  now  it  is  quite  fashionable  to  exploit  "new" 
religions,  springing  up  over  night  and  wither- 
ing away,  all  of  them,  in  the  heat  of  the  noon- 
day sun.  Their  discoverers  do  not  lack  imagina- 
tion and  enthusiasm.  But  what  is  new  about 
them  is  generally  also  illusory,  and  what  is 
of  real  value  is  old.  In  religion,  the  ever  vari- 
able, the  very  genius  of  humanity  expresses 
itself,  and  because  humanity  is  homogeneous 
that  expression  will  conform  to  a  few  definite 
types.     Christianity  is  one  of  these. 

This  act  of  prayer  to  Jesus  must  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  the  practices  of  the  disciples 
during  the  life-time  of  their  Lord.  Worship 
as  then  addressed  to  Jesus  was  purely  an  act  of 
homage.  The  lepers  prostrated  themselves  be- 
fore the  great  healer,  those  who  came  to  ask 
favors  "worshipped,"  i.  e.,  they  assumed  atti- 


5«  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

tudes  of  humble  supplication.  In  the  account 
of  the  temptation  Satan  is  represented  as  re- 
questing this  act  of  prostration  as  a  symbol 
of  submission  to  his  authority.  This  oriental 
custom  had  no  religious  significance.  The  same 
should  be  said  of  the  petitions  addressed  to  him 
in  the  natural  course  of  things.  When  the  dying 
malefactor  on  the  cross  says,  "  Jesus,  remember 
me  when  thou  comest  in  thy  kingdom,"  he  was 
but  making  a  request  such  as  one  man  may  make 
to  another.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  worship 
in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word. 

The  death  scene  of  Stephen  (Acts  7.)  gives 
one  of  the  earliest  illustrations  of  this  new 
departure :  "  He  looked  up  steadfastly  into 
heaven,  and  saw  the  glory  of  God,  and  Jesus 
standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God.  .  .  .  And 
they  stoned  Stephen,  calling  out  and  saying, 
Lord  (kurie)  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit.  And  he 
kneeled  down,  and  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  Lord, 
lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge." 

It  is  important  to  remember  the  approxi- 
mate date  of  this  event.  The  terminus  ad 
quern  is  given  with  the  conversion  of  Saul.  Just 
how  long  before  that  the  martyrdom  took  place 
it  is  impossible  to  determine.  It  could  not  have 
been  very  long.  The  date  of  the  conversion 
is  given  by  Harnack  as  30,  Ramsay  33,  von 
Soden  31-35,  Zahn,  Zeittafel,  35.  If  the  sub- 
stantial trustworthiness    of  Acts    is   assumed, 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  53 

the  distinct  worship  of  Jesus  can  accordingly 
be  authenticated  as  having  been  practiced  at 
least  as  early  as  35,  i.  e.,  at  the  most  four  or 
five  years,  more  probably  within  a  year  or  so, 
after  the  death  of  Jesus. 

The  possible  objection  that  this  prayer  of 
Stephen  may  be  nothing  but  a  projection,  into 
our  account,  of  a  later  theological  idea  seems 
to  be  disposed  of  when  it  is  ascertained  that 
the  story  of  Pentecost  lacks  the  least  hint  at 
such  a  practise;  and  the  argument  of  Peter 
would  certainly  not  have  suffered  for  the  in- 
troduction of  the  thought  that  this  Jesus,  cru- 
cified by  the  Jews,  had  become  the  object  of 
divine  worship.  The  presence  of  that  element 
would  have  been  more  easily  explained,  especi- 
ally if,  as  it  has  been  suggested  (von  Dob- 
schuetz,  Ostern  und  Pfingsten),  the  account  of 
Pentecost  is  nothing  but  the  description  of 
another  christophany.  Romans  8  is  sufficient 
warrant  for  that  supposition.  Outside  of  that, 
we  meet  ever  and  anon  with  the  idea  that  the 
Lord  is  the  Spirit,  (2  Cor.  3,  17.)  and  as  long 
as  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  glorified  Christ  are 
interchangable  terms,  as  they  obviously  were 
for  quite  a  while,  the  composition  of  such  an  ac- 
count is  quite  within  the  limits  of  possibility. 
But  the  very  hypothesis  of  such  a  composition 
will  have  to  draw  upon  sufficient  time  to  allow 
the  development  of  at  least  the   rudiments  of 


54  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

Christ-worship,  which  we  find  missing  in  the 
Pentecost  account. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  it  is  not  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  Jesus  was  accorded  the  honor 
of  genuine  religious  adoration  very  soon  after 
his  crucifixion. 

Prayer  to  Jesus  was  the  main  custom  of 
the  first  Christians  distinguishing  them  from 
the  rest  of  the  Jews.  Paul  had  authority  to 
bind  all  those  that  called  upon  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  He  greets  the  saints  of  Corinth, 
"  with  all  that  call  upon  the  name  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."  "  To  call  upon  the  name  of 
"  is  a  hebraism  used  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment for  worship  of  Jehovah. 

We  have  already  discussed  the  passage  in 
which  Paul  predicts  that  all  knees  shall  bow 
in  the  lordly  name  of  Jesus;  it  was  seen  that 
the  glory  of  God  the  Father  still  overshadowed 
everything  else.  We  have  also  seen  that  the 
New  Testament  writers,  with  a  practical  unani- 
mity, hesitate  to  apply  to  Jesus  Christ  any 
name  that  might  be  a  virtual  denial  of  their 
monotheism. 

It  remains  to  show  that  all  this  did  not  pre- 
vent the  gradual  growth  of  a  prayer  cultus  in 
which  Jesus  assumes  all  the  superlative  pre- 
rogatives that  are  associated  with  an  object 
of  religious  worship. 

Stephen  prays  to    the    Lord    that    he    may 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  55 

forgive  the  Jews  who  are  stoning  him.  This 
is  a  reminiscence,  no  doubt,  of  the  scene  on 
Calvary. 

In  1  Thess.  3,  11  God  the  Father  and  the 
Lord  Jesus  are  jointly  invoked  "  to  direct  our 
ways  unto  you."  In  other  words,  Jesus  assumes 
the  function  of  a  providence  or  celestial  guide. 

2  Thess.  2,  16  the  office  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  bestowed  on  Jesus :  "  Now  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  himself,  and  God  our  Father,  .  .  .  com- 
fort your  hearts  and  estabHsh  them  in  every 
good  work  and  word." 

The  Gospel  of  John  offers  a  variant  of  this 
thought  when  Jesus  is  represented  as  promising 
to  send  the  Spirit  who  will  do  this  work. 

Paul's  thorn  in  the  flesh,  which  came  as  a 
messenger  of  Satan  to  buffet  him,  whatever  it 
was,  was  held  to  be  troubling  him  subject  to 
the  will  of  the  sovereign  Christ :  "  Concerning 
this  thing  I  besought  the  Lord  thrice,  that  it 
might  depart  from  me."  And  then  a  veritable 
though  unfavorable  answer  to  these  prayers 
is  recorded ;  "  And  he  hath  said  unto  me.  My 
grace  is  sufficient  for  thee."  (2  Cor.  12,  8 
and  9.) 

In  the  later  apocalyptical  writings  the  Lamb, 
which  is  the  slain  Jesus,  is  worshipped. 

And  the  conclusion  of  2  Peter  gives,  after  a 
description  of  the  dies  irae,  a  doxology  in  which 
Jesus  actually  supplants  God :    "  To  our  Lord 


56  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

and  Savior  Jesus  Christ  be  the  glory  both  now 
and  forever.  Amen."  Compare  with  this  John 
5,  23 :  "  That  all  may  honor  the  Son  even  as 
they  honor  the  Father J'^ 

Pliny's  letter  to  the  emperor  Trajan  (A.  D. 
107.),  one  of  the  most  valuable  documents  bear- 
ing on  the  usages  in  the  primitive  church,  re- 
cords that  the  whole  fault  of  the  accused 
Christians  was  that  they  were  wont  to  meet  to- 
gether on  a  stated  day  before  it  was  light,  and 
sing  among  themselves  alternately  a  hymn  to 
Christ,  as  to  God,  quasi  deo. 

Finally,  2  Clement  begins,  "  Brethren,  we 
ought  so  to  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as  of  God." 
The  barriers  have  been  demolished,  the  fine  dis- 
tinctions have  disappeared. 

WHAT    CAN    WE    ASCERTAIN    CONCERNING    JESUS? 
THE   NEGATIVE  SIDE 

And  now,  after  establishing  the  fact  of  Jesus- 
worship  in  the  apostohc  community,  we  shall 
have  to  face  the  all-important  question:  Did 
Jesus  in  any  way  encourage  such  a  tendency? 
Can  he  be  taken  as  an  authority  for  this  prac- 
tice.'* Can  we  infer  from  his  recorded  words 
that  he  anticipated  or  intended  a  development 
in  worship  along  this  line.'' 

It  might  be  less  disconcerting  to  many  if 
such  question  marks  were  blandly  ignored.  Such 
marks  used  to  be  considered  the  sign  of  the 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  57 

beast.  A  sense  of  security  councils  evasion. 
To  use  the  language  of  romanticism  "  the  devil 
walks  with  us.  He  comes  to  us  a  real  person, 
copper-colored  face,  head  a  little  on  one  side, 
forehead  knit,  ashing  questions T^ 

For  here  is  the  parting  of  the  ways  and  we 
shall  have  to  follow  the  one  or  the  other.  The 
one  path,  if  followed  without  wavering,  will 
end  in  the  discovery  of  practically  the  whole 
christology,  ready-made,  in  the  recorded  words 
of  Jesus.  The  other  path  is  shorter,  less  easy, 
and  ends  in  a  modest,  but  decided  non  licet.  It 
involves  us  in  the  whole  Leben  Jesu  discipline. 
The  fundamental  question  is.  What  can  we 
find  out  about  Jesus,  the  man  of  Nazareth  ? 

The  reader  need  hardly  be  reminded  that  to 
the  biblical  scholar  of  the  present  age  the  first 
way  indicated  is  practically  impassable,  for  it 
is  choked  up  with  the  rank  growth  of  spiritual 
adaptations,  harmonizations  and  compromises. 
It  is,  in  very  truth,  a  winding  way.  Here  may 
be  found,  in  full  flower,  the  idea  that  Jesus 
must  have  planned  everything  from  the  begin- 
ning, here  flourish  the  orchids  of  theological 
speculation:  that  the  man  Jesus  could  be  ignor- 
ant of  what  must  have  been  known  to  him  as 
God,  that  the  disciples  must  have  misunderstood 
his  words,  that  only  that  is  true  and  catholic 
which  has  always,  everywhere,  been  believed  by 
everybody,    that    providence    can    permit    no 


58  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

blunders  in  the  education  of  the  human  race, 
that  ten  thousand  words  spoken  in  an  inspired 
tongue  must  surely  be  worth  more  than  five 
words  of  understanding.  This  way  leads 
through  the  tropical  garden  of  the  Gospel  of 
John. 

It  is  only  here  and  there  that  the  second, 
shorter  path  crosses  the  first.  In  other  words, 
abandoning  the  figure  before  it  becomes  too 
cumbersome,  the  critical  method  only  occasion- 
ally busies  itself  with  the  material  which  formed 
the  main  stock-in-trade  of  the  traditional  school, 
prophecy,  anticipations,  miraculous  knowledge, 
providential  hardening  of  hearts,  disciplinary 
blindness,  and  the  synthetic  homilies  extracted 
from  the  Bible. 

The  critical  method  has  its  own,  all  but  in- 
superable difficulties.  These  do  not  grow  out 
of  the  obstructions  piled  up  by  fear  and  despair 
and  a  sense  of  solicitous  loyalty  to  what  has 
been  received  from  the  fathers.  For  here,  as 
elsewhere,  it  is  still  pertinent  to  ask:  "Who 
ever  knew  of  the  truth  to  be  put  to  shame  in 
an  open  encounter  with  error.?" 

The  greatest  difficulty  grew  out  of  the  neces- 
sity of  making  the  most  exactly  of  those  ele- 
ments which  the  gospel  writers  were  most  liable 
to  overlook.  As  has  been  noted,  their  energies 
went  into  the  reproduction  of  the  Christ  as 
he  appeared  to  the  consciousness  of  the  young 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  69 

church,  history  being  their  last  aim;  whereas 
we  are  interested  in  getting  behind  this  picture 
to  the  veritable  Man   of   Nazareth. 

He  who  says  that  this  is  a  distinction  with- 
out a  difference  thereby  admits,  in  so  many 
words,  that  the  arch-problem  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment does  not  exist  for  him,  and  he  will  natur- 
ally wonder  at  all  this  hair-splitting  of  the 
ingenious  critic — if  he  does  not  just  condemn 
it  all  in  the  lump  as  a  wicked  perversion. 

Now  there  have  not  been  wanting  aU  but 
compelling  voices  to  tell  us  that  the  quest  is 
hopeless.  To  try  to  get  at  the  mind  in  Jesus 
is  held,  in  some  circles,  equivalent,  for  difficulty, 
to  reading  the  riddle  of  the  universe,  the  assump- 
tion being  that  we  can  no  more  read  what  was 
in  him  than  a  quadruped  can  read  what  is  in 
us.  The  questions  which  Jehovah  hurls  out 
of  the  whirlwind  at  Job  are  directly  applied 
to  Jesus,  and  it  is  expected  that,  like  Job,  the 
modern  scholar  refrain  from  being  too  curious. 
And  this  caution  is  certainly  in  order.  Rever- 
ence is  the  first  condition  of  knowing  the  truth. 
Greatness  is  always  incomprehensible  to  medio- 
crity. In  Jesus  Christ  were  elements  of  purity 
and  godlikeness  to  which  our  lives  respond  but 
faintly.  Of  all  the  theories  concerning  the 
life  of  Christ  that  one  is  probably  the  least 
profitable  which  assumes  that  the  secret  of  Jesus 
wiU  ever  be  laid  bare  by  the  dissecting  knife 


60  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

of  the  critic,  though  there  is  one  other  that 
runs  it  hard  for  gratuitous  uselessness,  namely 
the  one  which  takes  it  for  granted  that 
all  one  needs  to  do  to  get  at  it,  is  to  read 
the  gospels  by  the  light  of  nature.  The  sub- 
ject is  not  just  a  matter  of  so  many  texts  to 
be  quoted  pro  or  con  any  given  conception 
of  Jesus'  personality.  And  where  the  devoted 
disciples  stumbled  we  shall  probably  fail  to 
reach  finality.  We  shall  never  know  what  was 
in  the  mind  of  the  Master.  There  is  one  con- 
solation :  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should. 

The  picture  of  Jesus  as  projected  upon  the 
pages  of  scholarship  is,  confessedly,  but  a  sil- 
houette, giving  the  barest  outlines;  all  the  fine 
nuances,  the  lines  that  reveal  character,  the 
smile  of  sympathy,  the  fire  of  zeal,  the  pene- 
trative eye,  are  hidden  in  the  blackness  of  our 
ignorance.  The  ordinary  methods  of  psycho- 
logy fail  us  here,  and  "ideal"  reconstructions 
are  not  especially  noted  for  their  verisimilitude. 
Anyway,  they  belong  to  the  province  of  the 
poet,  not  to  that  of  the  scientist. 

What  we  do  not  know  about  Jesus  is  indeed 
appalling.  And  the  more  is  said,  with  an  air 
of  certainty,  about  matters  which  our  mature 
judgment  calls  uncertain,  the  darker  becomes 
the  darkness. 

The  record,  on  the  most  favorable  hypo- 
thesis,  is   a   mere   fragment.      There    are   also 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  61 

many  other  things  which  Jesus  did,  the  which 
if  they  should  be  written  every  one,  I  suppose 
that  even  the  world  itself  would  not  contain 
the  books  that  should  be  written.  Thus  at 
least  one  thoughtful  writer  puts  the  matter. 
Reconstructing  an  extinct  species  from  a  fossi- 
lized bone,  as  paleontologists  are  sometimes 
credited  with  doing,  were  no  harder  task  than 
a  solution  of  the  problem  given  with  the  lost 
elements  of  Jesus'  life 

And  what  has  survived,  what  has  been  re- 
corded, gives  little  more  than  a  dry  chronicle 
of  events  mixed  with  gnomic  sayings  and  dis- 
cussions about  their  meaning.  This  record  is 
written,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  language  of 
a  generation  that  believed  in  diabolical  posses- 
sion, stars  that  could  drop  to  earth  like  over- 
ripe figs,  the  end  of  the  world,  miracles  that 
were  so  much  thaumaturgy,  the  "  manifest  des- 
tiny" of  a  specially  chosen  nation,  theophanies, 
angelologies,  virgin  births. 

Furthermore,  a  translation  of  a  transcrip- 
tion of  a  tradition,  carried  together  from  vari- 
ous and  varying  sources  by  men  not  one  of 
whom  had  seen  or  heard  Jesus,  can  hardly  be 
said  to  present  a  very  imposing  mass  of 
evidence. 

The  work  done  with  this  scanty  material  is 
one  of  the  triumphs  of  the  human  mind.  The 
negative   aspect   of   some   of   the   results   have 


62  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

blinded  many  to  the  fact  that  they  are  an  endur- 
ing monument,  not  to  scholastic  vagaries  and 
mistaken  theories — they  get  no  monuments 
built  for  them — but  of  what  patience  will  accom- 
plish when  applied  to  the  task  of  piecing  to- 
gether sadly  mutilated  bits  of  a  far-off  past. 
The  story  of  the  synoptic  problem  belongs  to 
the  same  chapter  which  records  the  discovery 
of  Neptune  and  the  deciphering  of  the  Rosetta 
stone.  The  Ur-markus  and  the  procession  of 
redactors  ticketed  with  algebraic  symbols  may 
not  be  very  impressive  when  they  emerge  from 
the  study  into  the  light  of  common  day,  but 
to  sneer  at  the  work  done,  as  some  who  also 
love  the  truth  have  allowed  themselves  to  do, 
betokens  a  total  blindness  to  some  of  the  most 
puzzling  difficulties  encountered  in  a  careful 
study  of  the  life  of  Christ. 

The  positive  results  reached  have  more  than 
justified  the  infinite  pains  taken.  Nor  can  it 
be  said  that  the  work  is  finished  today.  There 
are  "problems"  which  will  sorely  try  the  steel  of 
the  doughtiest  discoverer  to  come. 

It  may  not  be  useless,  it  will  at  least  help 
to  prevent  that  note  of  finality  which  voices 
itself  in  apodictic  statements  about  what  must 
be,  to  mention  a  few  of  the  outstanding  un- 
solved riddles. 

For  one  thing,  it  has  not  yet  been  fully 
settled  what  proportion  of  the  records  is  "the- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  63 

ology,"  and  what  can,  in  a  large  sense,  be  called 
"history." 

The  order  and  the  independence  of  the 
gospels,  though  an  enormous  amount  of  in- 
genuity has  been  brought  into  action,  and 
though  the  "sources"  are  slowly  assuming  some 
definite  form,  are  still  largely  hypothetical. 

The  chronology  is  still  a  jumble.  Even  such 
elementary  things  as  the  dates  of  the  birth  and 
of  the  death  of  Jesus  are  full  of  snares. 

Dalman  and  A.  Meyer  are  practically  the 
only  ones  whose  researches  in  the  language 
spoken  by  Jesus — surely  a  sine  qua  non  of 
correct  interpretation — have  become  common 
property. 

The  Son  of  Man  controversy  is  only  at  its 
beginning. 

The  investigations  in  "  the  mind  in  Christ" 
are  the  first  timid  attempts  to  ally  psychology 
with  biblical  criticism.  The  pioneers  Balden- 
sperger,  Adamson,  and  Schwartzkopff  would  be 
the  first  to  admit  that. 

With  the  eschatology  of  Jesus  comes  a  troop 
of  attendant  question-marks  about  the  kingdom, 
the  messiah,  and  the  parousia. 

That  the  tendency  theories  and  the  vision 
hypotheses  are  not  as  good  as  dead  and  buried, 
as  some  had  fondly  imagined  and  triumphantly 
proclaimed,  can  be  verified  by  a  most  cursory 
glance  into  the  present-day  literature  on  the 
resurrection. 


64  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

Who  will  speak  the  delivering  word  about 
the  miracles,  the  Gadarene  swine,  the  demoniacs, 
the  blasted  fig-tree?  The  so-called  free-think- 
ers ? ! 

And  the  Johannine  problem  is  still  with  us, 
although  the  various  schools  are  at  last  begin- 
ning to  cultivate  a  cordial  frame  of  mind. 

Need  it  be  said  that,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  it  is  characteristic  of  problems  that  some- 
thing be  known  about  them?  We  are  not  try- 
ing to  show  that  scholarship  is  in  a  way  to 
commit  suicide;  but  the  indications  are  that 
no  theological  Alexander  need  weep  tears  at 
the  borders  of  so  many  undiscovered  countries. 

The  whole  Leben  Jesu  discipline  has  split  into 
a  multitude  of  separate  specialties  which,  in 
their  complexity,  are  absolutely  beyond  the 
grasp  of  a  single  mind.  To  write  anything  ap- 
proximating a  real  Life  of  Christ  would  turn 
out  to  be  a  task  for  collaborative  effort,  like  an 
encyclopedia  or  a  dictionary.  In  all  candor 
it  must  be  said  that  no  man  with  scientific 
pretensions  would  think  of  making  the  venture 
today. 

And  with  all  this  infinite  amount  of  labor, 
taken  at  its  worthiest,  we  get  little  more  than 
the  shell,  the  mummy.  This  is  a  painful  situ- 
ation for  the  Christian  student.  How  the  heart 
yearns  for  a  glimpse  of  the  true  Jesus,  the 
friend  of  man!     Do  we  feel  that  hunger  when 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  65 

we  face  the  coldly  critical,  dissective  and  anti- 
septic results  of  scholarship?  We  feel  it  no 
less  when  we  see  what  the  unbounded  loyalty 
of  a  John  has  made  of  him.  And  what  the 
theologies  have  done  to  complete  the  havoc  has 
filled  many  a  simple  soul  with  a  pathetic  and 
agonizing  longing;  we  would  see  Jesus  and 
are  given  a  composite  photograph  of  what  the 
men  of  sixty  generations — thought  he  was! 

It  was  inevitable  that  loud  voices  should  be 
heard,  insisting  on  the  validity,  for  living  men, 
of  the  living  witness  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
personal  (and  why  not,  then,  in  the  national?) 
experiences  that  make  up  the  history  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  is,  after  all,  but  a  weighing  of  opin- 
ion against  opinion.  Surely  today's  thinking 
men,  the  living  epistles  of  the  church,  have  a 
message  as  important  as  any  dehvered  to  us 
from  the  past?  God's  revelation  has  not  suf- 
fered bankruptcy,  thus  far.  If  Schleiermacher 
and  his  school  had  never  written  a  word,  if 
Ritschl  had  never  been  born,  the  very  genius 
of  Christianity  would,  in  time,  have  forced  it- 
self through  and  beyond  the  shell  of  docu- 
ments, and  taken  up  its  parable  against  the 
wordcramming  and  the  microscopic  and  micro- 
tomic  laboratory  theology.  When  all  has  been 
said,  when  every  stray  bit  of  information  re- 
corded in  the  extra-canonical  literature  has  been 
made  to  contribute  its  mite  to  the  grand  total: 


ee  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

"What  do  you  read,  my  Lord? — ^Words,  words, 
words!"  And  the  sober,  practical  sense  of  the 
Christian  will  indorse  the  sentiment  in  the  pre- 
face of  Johnson's  Dictionary:  "I  am  not  yet 
so  lost  in  lexicography  as  to  forget  that  words 
are  the  daughters  of  earth,  and  that  things  are 
the  sons  of  heaven." 

The  earthly  life  was  lived,  was  only  a  memory, 
when  its  awful  significance  dawned  upon  the 
consciousness  of  man.  And  then  it  was  too 
late  to  ask  questions,  and  to  take  notes.  There 
had  been  no  time  to  make  records  while  Jesus 
lived,  and  the  kingdom,  where  chronicles  were 
useless,  was  fast  approaching.  When,  at  last, 
the  many  took  it  in  hand  to  draw  up  a  narra- 
tive concerning  those  things  which  had  been 
fulfilled,  there  was  sure  to  be  confusion. 

To  assume  that  the  lost  or  unrecorded  pas- 
sages out  of  this  life  might  have  added  much 
to  our  knowledge  and  explained  why  the  early 
church  found  it  so  easy  to  elevate  Jesus  into 
the  theological  Christ,  is  about  as  profitable 
as  the  theory  that  the  lost  manuscripts  of  the 
gospels  must  have  been  infallible.  That  was 
the  last  ditch  in  the  fight  about  verbal  inspira- 
tion. To  expect  much  help  from  the  discovery 
of  new  material  is  a  council  of  desperation. 
It  will  not  help  us. 

To  indicate  how  grave  the  situation  is,  in 
spite   of   all   our  well-meant   efforts   to   strain 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  67 

the  meaning  of  the  smallest  point,  and  to  show 
how  little  meaning  there  is  to  the  general 
nervousness  felt  whenever  the  least  elimination 
is  suggested,  we  need  only  remind  ourselves  that 
we  do  not  even  know,  for  a  certainty,  what 
Jesus  believed  concerning  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead.  Did  he  teach  a  general  resurrection? 
Luke  14,  14  represents  him  as  speaking  of 
the  recompense  in  the  resurrection  of  the  just, 
and  in  Luke  20,  35f.  we  have  the  statement 
about  the  sons  of  the  resurrection,  who  are 
"  accounted  worthy  to  attain  to  that  world,  and 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead,"  neither  marry- 
ing nor  being  given  in  marriage.  To  quote 
the  words  of  certain  parables  in  favor  of  a  more 
settled  opinion  will  not  solve  the  difficulty. 

One  avenue  of  approach  to  the  mind  of  Jesus 
seemed  to  open  with  the  suggestion  that  the 
post-exilic  literature  of  the  Jews,  the  apoca- 
lypses and  other  contemporaneous  productions 
ought  to  be  studied  more  carefully.  Jesus  grew 
up  in  the  atmosphere  which  ripened  these  fruits 
of  the  speculative  mind.  He  was  familiar  with 
these  matters.  He  could  not  escape  their  in- 
fluence. Didn't  the  book  of  Baruch,  the 
Psalms,  and  Daniel  mightily  impress  his  imagi- 
nation? Could  he  not  hold  his  own  against 
the  pharisees  who  were  always  quoting  the  say- 
ing of  the  rabbis,  meeting  them  on  their  own 
level? 


68  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

And  yet  the  hope  at  their  hand  to  reconstruct 
his  world  is  a  tantalizing  will-o'-the-wisp.  This 
literature  sheds  a  flickering,  fitful  light  on  the 
New  Testament,  to  be  sure,  but  we  venture  to 
say  that  for  a  study  of  the  mind  in  Jesus  it  is 
a  most  unprofitable,  disappointing  source  of 
information.  The  whole  mass  of  rabbinical 
learning  is  like  the  proverbial  haystack,  and 
it  will  never  be  a  very  popular  life-work  for 
many  to  search  for  the  authentic  needle  it  no 
doubt  contains.  The  distinctive  thing  about 
Jesus  is  not  what  he  inherited  or  borrowed,  but 
what  he  possessed  over  and  above  his  con- 
temporaries and  his  countrymen. 

This  implies  no  strictures  on  the  splendid 
work  of  those  scholars,  from  Scherer  down  to 
Bousset,  who  have  gone  through  this  sheer  in- 
terminable pile  of  learning.  We  can  never 
have  too  clear  a  background  for  the  figure  of 
the  Lord.  It  is  only  as  a  key  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  personality  itself  that  this  work 
will  always  be  found  wanting. 

WHAT    CAN    WE    ASCERTAIN    CONCEENING    JESUS? 
THE    POSITIVE    SIDE 

It  may  be  a  positive  relief  to  some  to  turn 
from  all  this  to  a  statement  of  the  facts  which 
stand  out  as  reasonably  well  authenticated. 

There  are  some  things  we  know.  Jesus  was 
not  a  myth.    The  denial  of  Kalthoff  and  others, 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  69 

that  such  a  person  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ever 
lived  involves  such  a  tour  de  force  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  documents  and  such  a  multiplica- 
tion of  incredible  hypotheses  that  it  will  never 
be  taken  seriously  by  those  who  have  acquainted 
themselves  thoroughly  with  the  available  ma- 
terial. In  face  of  this  denial  the  old  position 
of  the  apologetic  theologians  is  still  perfectly 
sound:  it  is  absurd  to  imagine,  seriously,  that 
any  man  or  any  set  of  men  should  ever  have 
been  able  to  invent  such  a  character  and  make 
him  speak  as  he  is  reported  to  have  spoken. 
Such  a  supposition  would  call  for  as  great  a 
miracle  as  the  emergence  of  a  real  Jesus  Christ 
into  history.  It  means  doing  violence  to  all  the 
canons  of  research.  It  cannot  draw  upon  a  shred 
of  evidence  to  make  itself ,  passably  presentable 
in  the  council  of  historians.  It  only  needs  to  be 
stated  to  be  condemned.  It  was  profitable  that 
the  denial  should  be  made,  in  a  dignified  way, 
by  men  who  commanded  a  hearing  in  circles 
competent  to  handle  the  subject,  for  it  occa- 
sioned a  renewed  examination  of  the  very 
foundation  of  the  Christian  faith,  an  examina- 
tion which  each  generation  is  bound  to  make 
for  itself.  No  age  has  the  right  to  take  its 
faith  for  granted.  It  must  be  earned  and 
fortified  with  reasons  that  are  constantly  open 
to  revision. 

In  this  case,  once  more,  the  ancient  landmarks 


70  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

were  found  to  be  unremoved.  As  was  said  long 
ago:  it  would  take  a  Jesus  to  invent  a  Jesus. 

What,  then,  do  we  know,  beyond  a  reason- 
able  doubt? 

We  know  that  the  parents  of  Jesus  belonged 
to  the  socalled  middle  class.  He  was  a  Gali- 
lean (hence  the  occasional  surmise  that  he  may 
have  been,  not  a  Jew,  but  an  Aryan,  the  Gali- 
leans being  a  mixed  race  with  its  roots  in  Baby- 
lon). He  was  probably  born  in  Nazareth.  It 
was  there  that  he  grew  into  manhood  among 
brothers  and  sisters,  among  neighbors  and  ac- 
quaintances who  illustrated  the  proverb  that  a 
prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own 
country  or  among  his  own  people.  His  own 
mother  failed  to  detect  what  pious  worshippers 
of  a  later  age  beheld  streaming  from  him  at 
every  point,  an  energy,  a  goodness,  a  wisdom, 
a  love  that  marked  him  as  unique  among  the 
children  of  men. 

After  reaching  maturity  he  abandoned  his 
father's  trade  and  took  up  the  profession  of 
a  peripatetic  teacher.  The  hope  of  Israel,  the 
desire  of  the  ages,  the  whole  moral  desolation 
and  the  political  distraction  of  the  times  be- 
came to  him  a  call  to  proclaim  the  good  news 
of  God's  nearness  to  his  countrymen.  John 
the  Baptist  had  helped  to  shape  events.  Never 
man  spake  like  Jesus,  and  the  bonafide  cures 
wrought  upon  the  bodies  and  the  souls  of  the 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  71 

expectant  multitudes  only  deepened  the  general 
impression  that  a  loving  God  was  about  to 
visit  His  people.  This  was  the  gospel  as  pro- 
claimed to  an  ever  widening  circle  of  sympa- 
thizers. And  the  power  which  was,  for  him, 
renewed  in  the  long  hours  of  communion  with 
God  whom  he  knew  to  be  his  father,  went 
out  to  many  who  hailed  him  as  the  promised 
one,  whose  coming  the  prophets  had  foretold. 

Under  the  pressure  of  the  inevitable  opposi- 
tion on  the  part,  especially,  of  the  pharisees, 
the  guardians  of  Israel's  orthodoxy,  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  assumed  a  decidedly  apocalyptic 
character.  Dark  hints  foreshadowed  the  impend- 
ing national  catastrophe.  Did  Jesus  care  to 
assume  the  crown  of  Messiah.?  We  know,  at 
least,  that  the  politico-social  program  of  the 
nation  was  utterly  distasteful  to  him.  He 
preferred  to  develop  the  conception  of  a  spirit- 
ual kingdom  in  which  the  ties  of  the  mosti 
intimate  kinship  were  to  mean  less  than  the 
fatherhood  of  God.  No  doubt  his  trying 
experiences  in  his  own  home  had  helped  to 
give  prominence  to  this  idea.  Disappointment 
followed  upon  the  heel  of  expectation.  His 
own  people  consider  him  insane;  Nazareth 
repudiates  him;  the  official  representatives  of 
the  pure  religion  take  courage. 

A  vile  conspiracy  cuts  off  a  public  ministry 
of   one   and   one-half   to   two   years'    duration, 


72  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

practically  all  of  which  was  confined  to  a  small 
section  of  his  native  land.  Israel  remains  true 
to  her  traditions  of  killing  her  heaven-sent 
messengers.  Gethsemane  shows  the  agonizing 
soul  of  the  disappointed,  yet  resigned  Master, 
who  was  intent  on  obeying  the  Father's  will. 
Nobody,  be  it  friend  or  foe,  could  possibly 
have  invented  a  description  of  such  an  agony, 
ending  with  its  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me?"  The  gloom  of  Calvary 
has  settled  upon  the  final  scene  of  the  Son  of 
Man.  It  is  perfectly  feasible  to  suppose  that 
Jesus  had  foreseen  the  outcome,  and  the  re- 
sultant reflexions  supplied  the  germ  for  that 
luxuriant  growth  of  apocalyptic  speculations 
which  fill  so  large  a  part  of  the  gospel  narra- 
tives. 

All  that  remains  to  be  mentioned  is  a  few 
recollections  of  scattered  teachings,  pieced  to- 
gether without  much  reference  to  their  chrono- 
logical order,  some  opalescent  traditions  of  this 
wonderful  personality  who  had  spoken  strangely 
beautiful  words  and  had  done  the  works  of 
a  prophet. 

This  is  what  history  knows  of  Jesus.  We 
shall  have  to  show,  directly,  that  the  science 
of  history  does  not  exhaust  the  meaning  of 
that  life,  that  it  may  even  have  missed  what  is 
in  reality  the  main  thing  about  it.  A  religion 
that  is  content  to  find  its  main  props  in  definite 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  73 

historical  events  ("  if  so  and  so  did  not  happen, 
then  your  faith  is  in  vain")  may  satisfy  the 
intellectual  demands  of  the  thinker,  but  it  can 
hardly  be  said  to  satisfy  that  craving  for  real- 
ity, called  the  hunger  for  God,  which  has  ever 
esteemed  one  deep  personal  experience  worth 
a  century  of  events  ever  so  well  documented. 
Besides,  there  is  a  great  multitude  of  witnesses 
to  show  that  their  faith  is  not  in  vain — if  re- 
sults count — ^though  they  refuse  to  commit 
themselves  to  the  events  in  question. 

How  fragmentary  this  record  is  becomes 
obvious  when  the  long  account  of  the  last  week 
is  allowed  to  appear  in  the  proper  perspective, 
when  the  speeches,  parables,  and  discussions 
are  put  into  a  class  by  themselves,  when  the 
passages  that  deal  with  other  characters — ^phar- 
isees,  priests,  sadducees,  John  the  Baptist, 
Peter,  John,  Judas  and  all  the  rest — are  put  to 
one  side,  and  when  the  legendary  element  is  re- 
duced to  its  lowest  terms,  the  original  kernel  of 
truth.  It  is  a  sobering  fact  that  nothing  which 
may  by  any  courtesy  be  called  a  biography  can 
possibly  be  reconstructed  from  such  material. 
Though  it  is  a  palpable  exaggeration  to  say 
that  we  are  certain  only  of  what  Jesus  did  not 
say  and  did  not  do,  yet  the  records,  even  when 
studied  through  the  microscope  that  seems  to 
enlarge  the  all  but  invisible  details  of  the  gospel, 
are  a  sore  disappointment  to  every  reader  who 


74  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

is  looking  for  more  than  shattered  and  scattered 
bits.  The  precious  vase  is  gone,  the  sherds 
remain. 

THE    SUPPIiEMENT    TO    HISTORY 

But  this  is  not  all.  There  is  a  compensation 
for  this  irreparable  loss.  The  authentic  his- 
tory of  those  short  years  is  supplemented  by  the 
witness  about  Jesus.  The  larger  part  of  the 
New  Testament  is  a  witness  to  his  influence; 
but  for  his  work  it  would  never  have  been  writ- 
ten. The  Christian  experience,  the  soulful  tes- 
timony of  the  loyal  disciples,  the  vital  evidences 
presented  by  what  became,  in  course  of  time, 
the  Christian  church:  all  this  modifies,  enor- 
mously, our  judgment  of  what  is,  on  its  positive 
side,  so  scanty  a  result. 

Carlyle  once  said  that  it  is  impossible  to 
build  a  house  without  truth — ^how  then  a  world- 
religion?  The  experiences  of  the  disciples  after 
the  terrible  days  of  the  passion  brought  out 
what  was  latent  all  along:  this  was  indeed  the 
Son  of  God,  The  truth  could  not  be  burked  by 
the  enemy,  it  could  not  be  obscured  by  friends. 
And  so  the  cross,  the  very  weapon  that  had 
given  all  messianic  pretensions,  not  to  say  di- 
vine pretensions  (we  are  speaking  after  the 
manner  of  man)  the  coup-de-grace,  was  meta- 
morphosed into  the  dazzling  emblem  of  victory. 
What  was  once  an  unqualified  offense  became  an 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  75 

irresistible  argument.  The  ensuing  quarrels 
of  contending  parties,  each  claiming  to  be  the 
truest  representative  of  the  new  religion,  are 
wearying  enough,  the  world  is  sick  of  theories 
about  the  "persons"  in  the  Godhead,  the  social 
gospel  of  today  has  crowded  out  almost  all  in- 
terest in  such  speculations,  but  they  all  show — 
even  the  wellnigh  blasphemous  definitions  of  the 
early  symbols — that  there  was  something  about 
Jesus  which  the  eye-witnesses  had  failed  to  see 
and  the  ear-witnesses  had  failed  to  hear.  And 
the  history  of  1900  years  is  proof  that  the 
grave  where  Joseph  of  Arimathea  had  laid  the 
dead  body  was  not  the  last  word  of  the  life  of 
Jesus. 

The  early  strange  traditions  about  the  resur- 
rection of  the  crucified  body  and  about  an  im- 
pending parousia  show  how  deeply  the  first 
converts  felt  the  necessity  of  accounting  for  the 
new  life.  The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  a 
concrete  expression  of  this  need.  The  influence 
of  the  dead,  yet  living  Lord  had  to  be  ex- 
plained. The  disciples,  it  is  well  to  remember, 
were  a  practical  society  of  believers,  not  a  re- 
public of  letters.  They  had  no  special  pro- 
gram to  follow,  no  preconceived  scheme,  least 
of  all  the  one  of  palming  off  a  fraud  upon  pos- 
terity, no  philosophy  of  any  description;  but 
they  had  a  thousand  facts  of  daily  experiences, 
absolutely  new  in  their  manifestation,  to  be  ac- 
counted for  in  some  way. 


76  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

So  the  christophanies,  the  christologies,  and 
the  complete  machinery  of  a  Jesus-cult  gradu- 
ally got  into  motion.  They  all  expressed  at 
least  one  conviction,  which  had  grown  out  of 
their  experiences,  and  was  based  upon  the  reli- 
able observation  of  many:  He  is  risen.  Many 
could  say  with  Paul  "I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ 
that  liveth  in  me."  Paul's  entire  theology  is  an 
amplification  of  this  spiritual  experience.  The 
historical  Jesus,  as  time  passes  on  and  the 
memory  becomes  dimmed  and  unreliable,  fades 
away  in  the  brighter  light  of  the  new  Christ, 
not  known  after  the  flesh.  Without  Jesus, 
Christ  would  have  been  impossible;  as  Christ, 
Jesus  became  the  center  of  the  church's  inter- 
est; Jesus,  the  Christ,  henceforth  was  the  Lord, 
as  they  confessed. 

It  only  remained  for  the  prologs  of  Mat- 
thew and  Luke  to  supply  a  setting  for  this  su- 
pernatural picture,  and  for  John  to  speculate 
on  pre-existence,  and  the  deification,  which  Paul 
had  always  evaded,  was  complete.  Exit  for  al- 
most one  thousand  nine  hundred  years  all  inter- 
est in  the  Man  of  Nazareth.  No  wonder  there 
are  uncertainties  about  his  mission  and  his 
message ! 

We  may,  in  this  place,  most  conveniently 
mention  two  points  concerning  the  message  of 
Jesus  a^  it  affected  the  apostoHc  tradition. 

One  of  the  storm-centers  at  present  is  found 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  77 

in  the  question  whether  Jesus  ever  encouraged 
the  idea  that  he  was  the  promised  one,  the  long- 
expected  Messiah.  It  is  impossible  to  close  this 
debate  for  good  as  long  as  the  question  of  the 
evidential  value  of  the  eschatological  chapters 
especially  in  Matthew  and  in  Luke  remains  un- 
settled. The  question  raises  no  difficulties  for 
him  who  considers  the  gospels  all  of  one  piece. 
Of  course,  Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah — 
and  straightway  the  whole  battery  of  the  dis- 
credited proof -text  method  is  wheeled  into  posi- 
tion to  defend  the  point. 

We  have  to  reckon  with  the  possibility,  how- 
ever, that  these  passages  are  the  effect  and  not 
the  cause  of  the  messianic  expectations  of  the 
first  generation  after  Christ.  It  is  in  reality 
a  question  of  probabilities.  And  the  appear- 
ances are  rather  in  favor  of  the  supposition 
that,  to  some  extent,  the  Lord  shared  these  con- 
victions. The  evidence  is  an  indirect  one;  it  is 
found  in  the  whole  tenor  of  apostolic  Christian- 
ity. While  here  and  there  we  find  it  impossible 
to  resist  the  reasons  for  rejecting  certain  state- 
ments as  authentic,  yet  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
apostolic  age,  the  attitude  of  expectation  on  the 
part  of  Paul  and  the  other  Christians  indicates 
that  some  of  the  Master's  words  pointed  that 
way.  At  any  rate,  Jesus'  authority  would  best 
explain  the  unanimous  opinion  that  he  was  the 
Messiah.     The  sayings    about    the    impending 


78  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

world-catastrophe,  the  coming  of  the  Son  of 
Man  in  the  clouds  of  the  sky,  the  suddenness 
and  the  nearness  of  this  event  are  all  the  more 
certainly  an  echo  of  his  own  words  because  they 
were  never  really  fulfilled.  This  is  but  the  ap- 
plication of  the  well-known  canon  in  criticism 
that  of  two  readings  the  more  difficult  one 
should  be  followed.  Certainly  no  disciple  would 
have  ventured  to  put  such  unfulfillable  words 
into  the  mouth  of  the  Master.  This  argument 
will  probably  be  decisive  with  most  students  of 
the  debatable  question. 

The  second  point,  to  be  considered  a  little 
more  at  length,  has  to  deal  with  the  relation  of 
the  original  gospel  to  the  theology  of  the  first 
disciples,  notably  of  Paul. 

The  situation  is  perhaps  most  rapidly  char- 
acterized when  one  states  what  the  church  added 
to  that  simple  gospel.  Paul's  interests  con- 
verge on  the  questions  about  the  atonement,  rec- 
onciliation, justification.  These  interests  are 
conspicuously  absent  in  the  recorded  words  of 
Jesus.  Paul,  not  Jesus,  is  the  creator  of  the 
language  of  theology. 

This  language  was  shaped  and  adopted  to 
explain,  as  far  as  possible,  the  mystery  of  the 
cross.  The  cross  is  no  part  of  the  gospel  that 
Jesus  preached.  It  did  not  enter  into  his  plans 
about  the  reconstruction  of  the  kingdom,  of  the 
world,   along  quasi-messianic    lines.     It  was  a 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  79 

reluctant  afterthought,  if  that,  forced  upon 
him  by  the  bitter  opposition  of  the  Jewish  hier- 
archy. Gethsemane  proves  that  to  the  last  he 
expected  relief;  he  hoped  that  the  bitter  cup 
might  pass.  What  he  looked  for  did  not  hap- 
pen— it  is  only  heroic  souls  that  do  not  break 
down  in  such  circumstances.  He  had  faith 
enough  in  God,  his  father,  to  trust  that  some- 
how the  cause  he  represented  would  still  be  suc- 
cessful. If  he  had  lived  he  would,  like  Paul, 
have  adjusted  himself  to  the  changing  condi- 
tions. 

His  followers  gradually  gave  up  their  hopes 
concerning  a  visible  theocracy;  chiliasm  became 
a  heresy  in  the  churches.  But  the  eternal  hope 
about  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth — which 
was  the  ideal  of  Jesus — could  not  be  throttled. 
The  daily  prayer  of  the  Christian  with  its 
"Thy  kingdom  come  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven"  is  the  expression  of  that  hope. 

That  prayer  is  the  best  bequest  the  Lord 
left  his  followers.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with 
theology.  Christian  theology  did  not  begin 
until  the  necessity  arose  to  account  for  the  new 
religion.  By  that  time  the  original  freshness 
of  the  impression  the  Master  had  made  was 
gone.    Hinc  illae  lacrymae. 

So  the  questions  arose,  to  be  asked  by  de- 
vout men  in  all  succeeding  ages  and  especially 
today  when  the  true  difference  between  the 
Christian  religion  and  the  religion  of  the  Christ 


80  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

emerges  into  the  consciousness  of  so  many. 
These  questions  have  been  set  in  every  scale  of 
human  emotion,  from  the  dull  and  melancholy 
plaint  of  despair  to  the  shrill  challenge  of  a 
cocksure  skepticism.  And  the  answers  have  been 
as  various  as  man  with  his  hopes,  his  prejudices, 
his  hatreds,  his  ignorance,  his  ideals,  his  reli- 
gion: Are  we  still  Christian?  Is  it  possible  for 
the  modern  man  to  be  Christian?  Can  a  life  be 
lived,  today,  according  to  the  original  gospel? 
Who  is  going  to  settle  the  foul  debate  in  the 
churches  as  to  who  best  represents  the  true 
spirit  of  Jesus?  How  best  can  we  force  our  way 
through  to  the  original  message  without  doing 
injustice  to  the  later  generations  of  men  who 
also  tried  to  reproduce  and  justify  the  truth  of 
our  religion?  Has  there  ever  been,  is  there  ever 
going  to  be  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  that 
unique  life?  Is  it  not  true,  in  a  way,  that  the 
cause  of  Jesus  perished  when  he  died? 

It  is  deplorable  that  these  questions  have  so 
often  been  associated  with  the  inclination  to  be- 
little the  apostle  Paul,  whose  theology  repre- 
sents the  first  decided  break  with  the  simplicity 
of  the  gospel  as  preached  by  Jesus.  The  anti- 
thesis Jesus — Paul  has  well-nigh  been  worked 
to  death.  Who  founded  the  church,  Jesus  or 
Paul?  Who  has  the  credit  of  first  seeing  the 
world-wide  possibilities  of  this  new  gospel:  the 
Master  or  the  disciple?  What  is  the  religion 
of  the  historic  church:  Christianity  or  Paulin- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  81 

ism?  Thus  the  contrasts  multiply.  A  formid- 
able literature,  claiming  the  credit  of  having 
rescued  the  real  Jesus,  has  elevated  these  con- 
trasts into  a  veritable  challenge  to  the  age. 

For  this  awakened  interest  in  the  life  of 
Jesus  has,  in  too  many  cases,  implied  a  competi- 
tion between  a  dry-as-dust,  clap-board,  facti- 
tious theology,  and  a  hearty,  nervous,  human 
religion,  in  which  Paul  has  been  forced  to  play 
a  truly  pitiful  part.  The  "Back  to  Christ" 
people,  though  well-meaning,  have  often  pre- 
sented themselves  in  the  rather  ungracious  light 
of  a  man  who  has  climbed  a  high  prominence  by 
means  of  a  convenient  ladder  and  then  kicks 
the  ladder  away  as  a  useless  encumbrance.  The 
scaffolding  is  not  the  building ;  but  the  building 
could  never  have  been  reared  without  it.  It 
was  through  Paul  that  they  were  led  to  Jesus, 
and  now  Paul  is  an  obstruction;  "he  is  not  the 
Christ" — which  he  never  pretended  to  be!  So 
they  repeat  the  slander  and  indorse  the  foolish 
onslaught  of  Swinburne: 

"Though  death  seem  life,  and  night 
Bid  lear  call  darkness  light, 
Time,  faith,  and  hope  keep  trust  through  sorrow  and 
shame, 
Till  Christ,  by  Paul  cast  out, 
Return,  and  all  the  rout 
Of  raging  slaves  whose  prayer  defiles  his  name 

Rush  headlong  to  the  deep,  and  die. 
And  leave  no  sign  to  say  that  faith  once  heard  them 
He." 


82  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

The  fact  is,  that  the  nearer  we  get  to  Jesus 
the  more  evident  it  becomes  that  it  was  Paul 
who  had  best  caught  his  spirit ;  he  was  truer  to 
it  than  the  pillar-apostles,  who  opposed  him, 
for  a  season. 

Paul  was  anything  but  a  recluse,  grinding  out 
theories  about  man's  first  disobedience  and  the 
fruit  of  that  forbidden  tree.  He  was  the  most 
practical  man  in  the  apostolic  age.  His  heart 
beat  warm  with  sympathy  for  the  new  converts 
in  many  towns.  In  the  most  abstruse  argu- 
ments about  God  and  sin  he  will  stop  and  give 
kindly  advice  about  the  homeliest  affairs  of 
human  life.  Nothing  human  seemed  alien  to 
this  much-travelled,  many-sided  man.  The  12th 
chapter  of  his  letter  to  the  Romans  shows  that 
he  knew  how  to  speak  the  language  of  the  man 
in  the  street — a  language  of  simple  terms  about 
the  elemental  things  of  life.  No  man — not 
even  John! — ever  spoke  more  sweetly  of  love 
(1  Cor.  13)  or  more  manly  of  freedom,  or  more 
prophetically  of  duty.  Modesty  was  as  charac- 
teristic of  him  as  it  is  of  every  truly  great  man. 

And  with  all  that  his  understanding  of  the 
central  truths  of  Christianity  was  simply  un- 
canny. No  man  since  has  in  the  remotest  de- 
gree approximated,  for  cogency  and  downright 
force,  his  exposition  of  the  Christian  faith. 
Augustine,  Luther,  Calvin,  Edwards  drew  their 
strength  from  him. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  83 

And  yet  he  would  be  only  a  slave  of  Jesus 
Christ.  "He  must  increase,  but  I  must  de- 
crease." As  a  slave  he  would  carry  the  vase 
he  had  fashioned  for  the  service  of  mankind. 
"An  earthen  vessel,"  he  would  have  called  it, 
though  the  artificer  had  shown  marvelous  skill 
in  making  it  convenient  for  handling  and  beau- 
tiful to  look  upon.  Into  the  creation  of  the  vase 
he  had  put  his  whole  soul  and  it  was,  in  truth, 
such  a  masterpiece  that  in  the  end  the  world 
forgot  to  ask  what  was  its  one  purpose,  its  rea- 
son for  being.  He  had  formed  it  to  carry  water, 
slave  that  he  was,  to  parching  souls.  The 
water  was  the  main,  the  indispensable  thing, 
and  that  had  been  supplied  by  his  Lord  and 
Savior,  Jesus  Christ.  Many  a  meaner  vessel 
has  been  filled  from  this  wonderful  vase;  men 
have  come  again  and  again,  and  its  contents 
are  not  exhausted  yet,  for  it  is  the  water  of  life 
that  brings  refreshing  to  the  nations.  Paul 
had  got  it  at  the  very  spring ;  he  knew  it  to  be 
the  one  thing  needed:  "I  make  known  to  you, 
brethren,  as  touching  the  gospel  which  was 
preached  by  me  that  it  is  not  after  man.  For 
neither  did  I  receive  it  from  man,  nor  was  I 
taught  it,  but  it  came  to  me  through  revelation 
of  Jesus  Christ."  To  serve  him  was  his  chosen 
life-work,  not  to  please  men  with  theological 
finesse  or  agreeable  doctrine,  least  of  all  to  sup- 
plant him,  the  latchet  of  whose  sandals  he,  too. 


84  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

would  have  considerd  himself  unworthy  to  loose. 
It  was  not  his  fault  when  later  generations 
forgot  the  water  for  the  vase — ^the  religion  for 
the  theology. 

THE   RELIGION    OF   JESUS 

It  is  generally  held  that  every  serious  depart- 
ure from  the  teachings  of  Jesus  concerning 
God  involves  a  corresponding  corruption  of 
Christianity.  If  this  is  true — and  in  a  sense  it 
is  true — of  the  teachings,  it  must  surely  also  be 
true  of  his  practises.  The  church  has  set  her- 
self an  ideal,  and  that  ideal  happens  to  be  em- 
bodied in  the  person  of  Jesus.  To  follow  him  is 
still  considered,  by  most  Christians,  the  surest 
way  of  reaching  humanity's  goal. 

If  this  is  so  there  can  be  no  task  more  im- 
portant than  to  find  out,  if  that  is  at  all  pos- 
sible, what  was  his  essential  faith.  What  he 
believed  about  God,  and  how  he  felt  towards 
God:  this  ought  to  be  determinative  of  Chris- 
tian belief  and  Christian  practise.  We  have 
our  own  lives  to  live,  and  our  own  ideals  to 
construct,  but  for  this  life-business  none  can 
equip  us  better  than  the  One  who  has  given  his 
name  to  modern  civilization. 

What  he  thought  about  evil,  death,  immor- 
tality, heaven,  character,  does  not  come  within 
the  limits  of  this  discussion ;  nor  need  we  be  de- 
tained here  by  any  detailed  examination  of  his 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  85 

attitude  towards  the  duties  one  man  owes  an- 
other— the  particularly  modern  expression  of 
all  true  religion.  If  these  subjects  are  touched 
upon  at  all  it  is  only  with  reference  to  their 
bearings  on  the  central  subject  of  his  relation 
to  God. 

As  for  what  Jesus  thought  about  the 
one  hundred  and  one  interests  which  dis- 
tinguish the  first  century  from  the  twen- 
tieth, Christianity  has  been  forced  to  the 
practical  admission  that  that  is  of  compara- 
tively little  importance  to  us.  Whatever  is  tem- 
poral, local,  accidental  in  life  is  unworthy  to 
assume  the  importance  of  first  principles.  To 
elevate  chance  remarks  addressed  to  certain  in- 
dividuals in  special  circumstances  into  rules  of 
conduct  universally  and  eternally  valid  is  the 
surest  way  of  turning  the  sweetly  natural  life 
of  Jesus  into  a  grotesque  caricature.  This  pol- 
icy is  the  mother  of  most  of  the  abortive  at- 
tempts to  translate  Jesus  into  the  twentieth 
century  and  Palestine  into  America  or  England 
or  Germany.  He  is  the  Savior  of  men  not  be- 
cause he  compels  assent  in  every  field  of  human 
endeavor,  but  because  he  is  the  acknowledged 
master  of  their  souls.  This  consideration  will, 
likewise,  mitigate  somewhat  the  disappointment 
when  it  is  seen  how  many  interests,  vital  to  our 
modern  existence  in  which,  for  better  or  for 
worse,  we  must  fight  it  out,  are  ignored,  abso- 
lutely, in  his  message  to  man. 


86  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

As  regards  those  elements  which  for  textual 
or  historical  reasons  appear  in  the  least  ques- 
tionable, we  are  in  duty  bound  to  eliminate  them 
altogether  when  the  attempt  is  made  to  reduce 
his  religion  to  its  simplest  terms.  For  instance, 
it  would  be  indefensible  to  draw  upon  his  escha- 
tological  sayings  that  are  so  thoroughly  satu- 
rated with  ideas  drawn  from  Jewish  apoca- 
lypses. Again,  the  avowed  purpose  and  method 
of  John  warns  the  student  that  its  contribu- 
tions are  unavailable,  however  useful  they  may 
be  in  other  directions.  Christ  was  not  the  center 
of  Jesus'  religion.  A  similar  caveat  is  in  order 
with  reference  to  some  portions  of  the  synop- 
tics. Once  again,  the  parabolic  sections  of  the 
gospels,  embodying  perhaps  the  most  genuine 
teaching  of  Jesus,  (it  will  be  recalled  that 
John  does  not  transmit  a  single  one)  will  have 
to  be  used  as  parables.  Luckily  the  time  is 
about  past  when,  in  the  not  over-elegant  but  ex- 
pressive phrase,  they  were  made  to  go  on  all 
fours.  And  yet,  once  more,  at  every  step  one 
is  under  the  obligation  of  considering  how  much 
the  whole  world-conception  of  antiquity  was 
bound  to  mold  the  thoughts  of  Jesus.  We  do 
not  believe  that  this  has  ever  been  done  thor- 
oughly. The  ancient  and  the  modem  not  only 
differ,  they  differ  violently,  without  a  single 
chance  of  a  compromise,  in  their  views  about 
earth,  heaven,  hell,   God,   man,  matter,   spirit, 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  87 

energy,  space,  creation,  law.  Science  unequivo- 
cally contradicts  the  antique  guesses  at  these 
matters.  And  Jesus  stood  under  the  spell  of 
this  world-conception.  Who  will  say  that 
Jesus  meant  the  same  thing  that  occurs  to  a 
modern  astronomer,  devout  and  not  mad,  when 
he  spoke  of  Our  Father  who  is  in  heaven? 

When  the  ground  is  thus  cleared  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  was  extremely 
simple — as  all  true  religion  is  bound  to  be,  for 
it  is  the  one  aboriginal  trait  of  humanity.  A 
man's  religion  is  given  with  his  relations  to  God. 
That  relation  is  the  primitive  thing  about  the 
universe. 

To  Jesus,  God  is  everything,  and  communion 
with  him  is  the  very  life  of  the  soul.  This  de- 
termines his  whole  religious  faith.  Even  his 
ethics  is  cast  in  religious  terms.  To  do  good 
and  to  abstain  from  evil  simply  because  good- 
ness is  right  and  evil  is  wrong  is  an  alien 
thought  which  has  to  be  smuggled  into  the  New 
Testament  before  it  can  be  read  as  a  text-book 
on  morals.  This  may  be  said  about  character. 
Jesus  believed  that  character,  actions,  life,  not 
beliefs,  constituted  the  important  thing  about 
religion.  Those  shall  be  blest  who  are  humble 
and  meek  and  righteous  and  merciful  and  peace- 
able and  pure  in  heart.  But  even  so,  character 
is  just  a  means  of  reaching  God.  All  life  is  to 
be  lived  with  reference  to  the  God  who  gave  it 


88  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

and  who  watches  over  it.  "Hate  father  and 
mother,"  he  could  say  with  a  magnificent  ex- 
aggeration and  an  apparent  disregard  for  the 
human  affections,  so  God  be  but  followed.  God 
will  recompense  him  who  loses  all — father, 
mother,  brother,  sister,  goods,  even  life  (or 
soul:  note  that  in  Jesus'  mother-tongue  there 
was  no  difference  between  soul  and  life.) 

This  God  is  in  some  ways  inscrutable  (He 
alone  knows  about  the  end  of  things)  ;  nobody 
can  be  like  Him  in  absolute  goodness  ("Why 
callest  thou  me  good.^*  Nobody  is  good  but  God" 
— Matthew's  version  being  a  palpable  soften- 
ing of  the  real  words)  ;  He  has  the  power  to 
destroy  and  to  cast  in  gehenna;  He  is  the  su- 
preme Lord,  the  one  master  to  be  served.  The 
first  commandment  is:  The  Lord  our  God,  the 
Lord  is  one,  and  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy 
strength.  (Mark  12,  29f.)  He  is  the  final  ar- 
biter of  our  lot:  "to  sit  on  my  right  hand  or 
on  my  left  hand  is  not  mine  to  give,  but  it  is 
for  them  for  whom  it  hath  been  prepared  of 
my  Father."     (Mat.  20,  23). 

It  is  notable  how  dominant  the  idea  was  that 
man  should  do  God's  will.  This  may  be  called 
his  favorite  way  of  describing  true  piety.  Who 
was  the  Master's  nearest  kin?  He  that  doeth 
the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven.     Who 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  89 

should  get  into  the  palace  of  the  great  king? 
Not  every  one  that  saith  Lord,  Lord,  but  he  that 
doeth  the  will  of  my  father  in  heaven. 

Into  what  a  wilderness  of  contradictions, 
dense  and  wild  and  gloomy,  has  man  strayed  in 
the  matter  of  worshipping  God !  God  was,  and 
God  could  hear,  and  life  was  full  of  misery  and 
disillusion  and  enemies.  Man  has  ever  believed 
that  through  prayer  this  God  could  be  influ- 
enced to  change  aff^airs  to  suit  man's  needs  and 
desires,  from  the  totemist  to  the  theist,  from 
Elijah  to  Moody,  from  Paul  to  Luther.  And 
into  the  darkness  of  dense  superstition  and  im- 
pious arrogance  and  pious  half -knowledge  and 
childlike  uncertainty  Jesus  throws  a  ray  with 
the  power  of  a  searchlight:  "Thy  will  be  done 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." 

Dare  a  thirsty  nation  pray  for  rain,  a  frantic 
mother  for  the  life  of  her  only  babe.?  No 
doubt;  they  always  have  and  always  will.  But 
what  about  the  answers  to  such  prayers.?  They 
do  not  supply  material  to  be  used  as  proofs  of 
the  value  of  prayer.  God'^s  will  will  he  done 
soToehow.  Here  Jesus  spoke  in  plain  terms ; 
this  was  his  deepest  conviction;  and  the 
nemesis  of  doubt  and  unfaith  has  caught  vast 
multitudes  simply  because  they  did  not  care  to 
take  him  at  his  word.  He  did  not  deprecate 
petition  in  prayer  as  such,  he  used  it  himself; 
but  when  the  iron  went  into  his    soul  and  the 


90  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

flesh  rebelled  against  the  injustice  of  men,  when 
the  cup  was  found  to  hold  not  a  draught  from 
paradise  but  the  verjuice  of  sad  disappoint- 
ment, in  his  extremity  he  could  say,  "Neverthe- 
less, not  my,  but  Thy  will  be  done."  This  scene, 
which  no  friend  would  ever  have  invented  and 
no  foe  could  ever  have  invented,  gives  charac- 
ter to  the  faith  of  Jesus  better  than  all  the 
isolated  remarks  which  the  loyalty  of  men  has 
arranged  into  "sermons"  about  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

This  God  of  Jesus,  whose  will  would  be  done, 
could  forgive  sin;  His  providence  embraces  all 
things  from  the  dying  sparrow  and  the  wilting 
lily  to  the  comfort  of  His  loved  children;  into 
the  hands  of  this  God  he  could  commit  his 
spirit  in  peace. 

To  extend  the  kingdom  of  this  his  God  was 
the  Master's  business.  As  a  servant  he  was 
willing  to  do  this  work,  ministering  unto  the 
needs  of  others,  one  of  many  servants,  begin- 
ning the  work  which,  as  he  felt,  later  genera- 
tions were  to  engage  in  with  even  greater  suc- 
cess. What  mattered  all  the  rabbinic  discus- 
sions about  the  right  interpretation  of  the  law, 
the  incursions  of  the  Roman  empire  into  the 
precincts  of  a  holy  land,  and  the  general 
malaise  of  the  people?  The  kingdom  was  the 
thing!  To  establish  it  God  had  sent  him  into 
the  world.     Now  it  was  at  hand.     And  procla- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  91 

mation  was  to  be  made  that  its  king  was  a  God 
of  love,  a  Father,  for  short. 

Jesus  felt  that  the  service  of  this  Father  must 
be  something  better  and  more  ennobling  than  a 
formal  religion  of  rites  and  sacrifices;  that  His 
laws  must  be  spiritually  interpreted;  that  faith 
in  such  a  God  helps  to  overcome  difficulties  even 
to  the  healing  of  body  and  soul ;  that  in  prayer 
one  could  come  near  unto  Him;  that  love  for 
Him  was  the  fulfillment  of  all  demands  upon  hu- 
manity; that  the  brotherhood  of  all  was  the 
practical  expression  of  that  love;  and  that  to 
proclaim  these  old  truths  with  a  new  emphasis 
and  to  realize  them,  as  had  never  been  done  be- 
fore, in  his  own  life,  was  why  he  had  come  into 
this  world. 

Every  man  has  a  mission;  his  life  carries  a 
message.  This  was  Jesus'  mission ;  this  was  his 
message;  it  centered  in  God,  the  Father. 

Repeatedly  the  question  has  been  asked: 
Now  that  our  changed  world-conception  had 
forced  us  to  change  our  views  concerning  the 
nature  of  God,  dare  we  say  that  Jesus  was 
right  about  this  his  message  .'^ 

Many  a  time  the  right  of  Jesus  to  speak  so 
authoritatively  about  God  has  been  challenged 
— oftenest  by  noisy  infidels,  sometimes  by  bur- 
dened, godseeking  souls.  For  religion  is  a  one- 
to-one  relation,  impatient  of  interruptions  and 
external  authorities.     Strange  as  it  may  seem, 


92  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

especially  in  view  of  the  terrible  history  of  re- 
ligious despotisms  over  the  souls  of  millions, 
man  is  still  ever  ready  to  test  the  validity  of  the 
received  faith,  and  when  he  does  that  authori- 
ties do  not  count.  Here  is  the  one  sphere  where 
he  will  be  his  own  master.  In  any  science  he  is 
willing  to  defer  to  the  opinion  of  the  man  who 
knows,  who  has  mastered  the  subject;  no  in- 
telligent person  would  consent  to  express  an 
opinion  on  the  properties  of  radium  before 
having  mastered  all  its  discoverers  have  had  to 
say  about  it.  Medicine  has  its  high-priests,  and 
the  law  a  sanctity  which  is  truly  awe-inspiring 
to  one  unacquainted  with  the  ways  of  the 
courts.  But  when  God  is  the  subject  for  discus- 
sion every  novice  deems  himself  as  wise  as  Cal- 
vin or  Spinoza.  The  theologian  is  on  the  de- 
fensive. Every  man  will  be  his  own  high-priest, 
and  nothing  is  sacred  but  by  the  consent  of  the 
devotee. 

We  believe  that  Jesus,  when  he  spoke  of  God, 
his  Father,  was  wrong  no  more  than  the  mod- 
ern man  is  wrong  when  he  speaks  of  God  in 
terms  of  cosmic  forces  and  ethical  values  and 
intellectual  judgments.  Forces  and  values  and 
judgments  do  not  exist  in  vacuo,  but  always 
presuppose  something  behind  them.  So  with 
the  terms  used  by  Jesus. 

All  terms  applied  to  God  are  figures  of 
speech;  there  is  no  exception.     The  statement 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  93 

that  God  is  a  father,  a  king,  a  spirit,  a  person, 
only  adumbrates  the  truth.  It  does  not  clearly 
define  or  exhaust  the  truth.  Language  made 
by  man  halts  in  the  presence  of  God.  God  is 
a  father,  and  He  is  much  more.  God  is  spirit, 
and  He  is  much  more.  God  is  a  person  and 
He  is  much  more.  He  is  very  love.  And  what 
is  Love.**  We  know  what  it  is,  but  we  do  not 
define  it  in  words. 

No — modern  science  will  not  convict  Jesus  of 
error  when  he  speaks  of  God  any  more  than  the 
Bible  will  convict  philosophy  of  error  when  it 
speaks  of  God.  Jesus  and  Kant  and  Micah 
and  Browning  all  speak  of  the  same  God — 
there  is  only  one — who  is  over  all,  blessed  for- 
ever.   Amen. 

It  is  only  because  Jesus  is  eternally  and  su- 
premely right  about  God  that  a  rejection  of 
him  means,  for  all  whom  he  forced  and  forces 
to  face  the  one  great  issue,  a  rejection  of  God. 
It  was  only  so  far  as  he  bore  the  message  of 
God  that  he  demanded  and  demands  allegiance. 
The  dignity  and  the  authority  of  kingship  is 
vested  in  the  ambassador  only  because  and  in 
so  far  as  he  represents  the  king.  That  one 
should  accept  him  for  his  own  sake  was  no 
part  of  his  program  as  a  savior.  He  came  as 
a  servant.  His  God,  who  is  our  God,  was  the 
Lord. 

Time   came   when   this   simple   truth   seemed 


94  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

inadequate  to  his  followers.  The  primal, 
cosmic  has  always  been  too  big  for  man  and 
so  he  has  had  recourse  to  definitions  and  dilu- 
tions and  special  applications.  Soon  the  battle 
began  to  rage  about  words  that  might  signify 
many  things,  yea,  that  to  the  human  under- 
standing might  signify  nothing!  We  are  not 
yet  agreed  what  is  meant  by  incarnation,  mira- 
cles, propitiation.  Holy  Spirit,  resurrection, 
immortality,  and  a  hundred  other  words  that 
hint  at  facts.  The  time  even  came  when  men 
thought  they  could  do  service  to  God  by  extir- 
pating any  goodness  in  the  world  that  was  not 
allied  with  the  official  body  of  belief.  Pagan 
virtues  were  but  shining  vices,  and  exemplary 
holiness  in  men  might,  so  John  Rogers  taught, 
be  nothing  but  "  a  cloak  to  hide  their  gross 
and  absurd  doctrine."  Heresy  trials,  as  the 
church  has  at  last  grudgingly  admitted,  are 
held  to  determine  not  whether  any  objection- 
able statements  are  in  accordance  with  the 
truth — when  did  heresy  trials  ever  tend  or  pur- 
pose to  establish  truth? — but  whether  they  are 
in  accordance  with  a  certain  body  of  pronounce- 
ments, a  creed,  accepted  by  a  certain  body  of 
men,  the  clergy,  as  the  official  belief  of  a  body 
of  worshippers,  the  church. 

That  religion,  the  communion  of  the  soul 
with  its  God,  could  not  be  crushed  by  this 
monstrous  weight  of  words   is  due  simply  to 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  95 

the  fact  that  religion  cannot  be  crushed  by 
anything.  We  are  smitten  with  a  hunger  for 
God  and  our  hearts  are  restless  until  they  find 
their  rest  in  Him. 

"lord,  teach  us  how  to  pray." 

We  have  seen  how  the  practise  grew  which 
made  Jesus  the  object  of  religious  adoration. 
We  have  tried  to  trace,  in  barest  outline,  the 
religion  of  Jesus  himself.  It  is  almost  nuga- 
tory to  inquire  whether  he  encouraged  this 
practise,  or  whether  his  religion  is  any  justi- 
fication of  this  practise. 

But  at  the  risk  of  repetition  we  shall  ask, 
more  specifically,  What  did  he  teach  about 
prayer.?  This  will  help  us  to  decide  whether 
the  church  did  well  in  addressing  songs  to 
Jesus,  qiuisi  deo. 

What  can  be  said  about  the  memory  of  Jesus 
is  especially  applicable  to  his  prayer-life;  it 
will  always  provide  an  effective  counterweight 
to  hold  down  the  too  exuberant  imagination 
that  delights  in  enlarging  upon  uncertain  mat- 
ters. If  it  had  not  been  for  this  memory  of  the 
veritable  man  who  grew,  worked,  suffered,  and 
died — though  it  is  noticeable  how  pale  it  eventu- 
ally got — there  is  no  telling  to  what  lengths  the 
church  would  have  gone  in  its  speculations 
about  the  "natures"  of  Christ.  The  fantastic 
mythologies  of  other  religions   are  an  indica- 


96  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

tion  of  what  is  produced  by  the  human  mind 
when  allowed  to  deviate  unchecked  from  the 
sober  facts  of  life.  The  full  flower  of  this 
tendency,  so  far  as  it  was  allowed  to  develop, 
may  be  sought  in  the  various  "gospels"  of 
James,  Thomas,  Pseudo-Matthew,  Nicodemus, 
with  the  corresponding  "Acts"  and  Apocalypses 
of   later   legend-making   centuries. 

But  there  was  always  the  authentic  record 
that  brought  men  back  to  earth.  The  fathers 
might  theologize,  a  Plato  might  speculate,  and 
our  modern  Utopians  play  with  pictures,  in  the 
end  men  had  to  echo  the  confession  of  Faust : 

"l  have,  alas!  Philosophy, 
Medicine,  Jurisprudence  too. 
And  to  my  cost  Theology, 
With  ardent  labor,  studied  through. 
And  here  I  stand,  with  all  my  lore. 
Poor  fool,  no  wiser  than  before." 

If  Jesus  had  never  lived  the  world  would 
probably  have  beheld  today  a  very  high  form 
of  religion — this  is  a  matter  of  course  with 
every  one  who  is  committed  to  the  principle 
of  a  growth  upwards,  a  progress  in  the  pro- 
cess of  the  ages — but  it  would  not  have  been 
the  Christian  religion.  The  Christian  religion 
is  conditioned  by  the  appearance  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  historical  person  of  Jesus  Christ, 

It  is  certain  that  Jesus  prayed.  A  dutiful 
son  of  Israel,  he  observed  the  stated  hours  of 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  97 

worship  and  followed  the  forms  prescribed. 
While  he  did  not  hesitate  to  abrogate — abro- 
gate is  the  word,  and  not  just  fulfil  or  spirit- 
ualize— any  letter  that  had  outlived  its  useful- 
ness, yet  his  whole  spiritual  being  must  have 
been  determined  by  the  religious  life  of  his 
time  and  people.  The  prayers  he  was  taught 
in  childhood  must  have  made  a  lasting  impres- 
sion on  the  boy.  He  had  learned  that  prayer 
was  a  duty.  He  had  learned  that  it  was  not 
to  be  interrupted  to  salute  even  a  king  or  to 
uncoil  a  serpent  that  had  wound  itself  around 
the  foot  of  the  worshipper.  (Mishnah,  Berak- 
hoth  30.) 

How  did  he  pray.?  The  New  Testament 
gives  us  as  good  as  no  information  that  is  of 
much  help  in  deciding  this  matter.  He  could 
not  have  prayed  the  "  Lord's  prayer,"  which 
was  given  as  a  model  to  be  followed  by  his 
disciples ;  his  prayer-life  is  shrouded  in  mystery. 
When  he  prayed  he  retired  into  solitude,  and 
he  deprecated  the  sensational,  spectacular 
standing  in  public  places  affected  by  the 
pharisees. 

And  yet  we  are  able  to  help  ourselves.  It 
is  certain  that  Jesus  attended  the  services  of 
the  Jewish  synagog;  it  is  highly  probable  that 
he  occasionally  acted  as  the  Sheliach  Tsibbur, 
reading  the  section  for  the  Sabbath  and  lead- 
ing the   devotions   of  the   service.      The  third 


98  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

gospel  contains  a  record  of  such  a  synagog 
service  in  his  home-town  Nazareth.  This  ser- 
vice began,  according  to  ancient  custom,  with 
two   prayers. 

Here,  then,  we  have  some  real  prayers  of 
Jesus.  It  will  be  interesting  to  note  them.  (vid. 
Edersheim,  The  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the 
Messiah,    Book   III,   chapter   10.) 

The   first   prayer   was: — 

"Blessed  be  Thou,  O  Lord,  King  of  the 
world,  Who  formest  the  light  and  createst  the 
darkness.  Who  makest  peace,  and  createst  every- 
thing ;  Who,  in  mercy,  givest  light  to  the  earth, 
and  to  those  who  dwell  upon  it,  and  in  Thy 
goodness,  day  by  day,  and  every  day,  renewest 
the  works  of  creation.  Blessed  be  the  Lord 
our  God  for  the  glory  of  His  handiworks,  and 
for  the  light-giving  lights  which  He  has  made 
for  His  praise.  Selah.  Blessed  be  the  Lord 
our  God,  Who  has  formed  the  lights." 

And  the  second: — 

"  With  great  love  hast  Thou  loved  us,  O* 
Lord  our  God,  and  with  much  overflowing  pity 
hast  Thou  pitied  us,  our  Father  and  our  King. 
For  the  sake  of  our  fathers  who  trusted  in 
Thee,  and  Thou  taughtest  them  the  statutes 
of  life,  have  mercy  upon  us,  and  teach  us. 
Enlighten  our  eyes  in  Thy  Law;  cause  our 
hearts  to  cleave  to  Thy  commandments;  unite 
our  hearts  to  love  and  fear  Thy  name,  and  we 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  99 

shall  not  be  put  to  shame,  world  without  end. 
For  Thou  art  a  God  Who  preparest  salvation, 
and  us  hast  Thou  chosen  from  among  all  nations 
and  tongues,  and  hast  in  truth  brought  us  near 
to  Thy  great  Name — Selah — that  we  may  lov- 
ingly praise  Thee  and  Thy  Unity.  Blessed 
be  the  Lord,  Who  in  love  chose  His  people 
Israel." 

After  these  invocations,  as  we  would  now  call 
them,  came  the  recital  of  the  Schema — the 
Jewish  creed — and  this  was  followed  by  the 
real  prayers  or  "Benedictions."  There  were 
nineteen  of  these,  six  of  which — ^the  most  anci- 
ent ones — were  generally  recited  on  the  Sabbath, 
together  with  more  informal,  extemporaneous 
ones,  specimens  of  which  are  given  in  the  Tal- 
mud. Jesus,  no  doubt,  used  these  Benedictions. 
We  give  the  first  and  the  eighteenth,  which  were 
recited  with  bent  body : — 

I.  "Blessed  be  the  Lord  our  God,  and  the 
God  of  our  fathers,  the  God  of  Abraham,  and 
the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob;  the 
Great,  the  Mighty,  and  the  Terrible  God,  the 
Most  High  God,  Who  showeth  mercy  and  kind- 
ness. Who  createth  all  things.  Who  re- 
membereth  the  gracious  promises  to  the  fathers, 
and  bringeth  a  Savior  to  their  children's  chil- 
dren, for  His  own  Name's  sake,  in  love.  O 
King,  Helper,  Savior,  and  Shield!  Blessed  art 
Thou,  O  Jehovah,  the  Shield  of  Abraham." 


100         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

XVIII.  "  We  give  praise  to  Thee,  because 
Thou  art  He,  Jehovah,  our  God,  and  the  Grod 
of  our  fathers,  for  ever  and  ever.  The  Rock 
of  our  life,  the  Shield  of  our  salvation.  Thou 
art  He,  from  generation  to  generation.  We 
laud  Thee,  and  declare  Thy  praise.  For  our 
lives  which  are  bound  up  in  Thy  Hand,  for  our 
souls  which  are  committed  to  Thee,  and  for 
Thy  wonders  which  are  with  us  every  day  and 
for  Thy  marvelous  deeds  and  Thy  goodnesses 
which  are  at  all  seasons,  evening,  and  morning, 
and  midday — Thou  Gracious  One,  for  Thy  com- 
passions never  end.  Thou  Pitying  One,  for  Thy 
mercies  never  cease,  forever  do  we  put  our 
trust  in  Thee.  And  for  all  this,  blessed  and 
exalted  be  Thy  Name,  our  King,  always,  world 
without  end.  And  all  the  living  bless  Thee — 
Selah — and  praise  Thy  name  in  truth,  O  God, 
our  Salvation  and  our  Help.  Selah.  Blessed 
art  Thou,  Jehovah.  The  Gracious  One  is  Thy 
Name,  and  to  Thee  it  is  pleasant  to  give  praise." 

The  Book  of  Psalms,  with  which  the  Lord 
was  familar,  will  supply  additional  material. 
Gethsemane  and  Golgotha  contribute  the  per- 
sonal element.  It  is  psychologically  impossi- 
ble that  those  scenes  should  have  been  invented 
by  friend  or  foe. 

Jesus  prayed  to  God,  his  Father,  and  he 
expected  his  disciples  to  pray  to  God,  their 
Father.      Neither  the  practise    of    the  Master 


MODERN  CHRlSTrAN  ''  io^ 

nor  his  recorded  teachings  give  the  least  justi- 
fication to  the  Jesus-worship  which  grew  up 
so  fast  after  his  death.  When  Origen  said: 
"  All  prayer  must  be  offered  to  the  Father," 
he  had  behind  him  the  positive  instructions  of 
Jesus,  for  he  taught  his  followers,  if  he 
taught  them  anything  at  all  about  prayer,  that 
they  should  pray  to  "  Our  Father  who  art  in 
heaven."  The  normative  form,  when  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  becomes  thoroughly  articu- 
lated, is  prayer  in  the  Spirit,  through  the  Son, 
to  the  Father, 

Even  so  good  a  Catholic  as  Loisy — it  is  well 
known  how  in  spite  of  all  modernist  sympathies 
and  papal  edicts,  Loisy  insists  on  being  at  heart 
a  true  Son  of  the  Catholic  church — can  say 
in  UEvangile  et  VEglise,  written  to  prove  that 
all  we  find  in  the  church  today  is  only  the 
development  of  the  original  germinal  truth,  that 
the  worship  of  Christ  and  the  worship  of  Saints 
did  not  belong  to  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  The  two 
are  yoked  together.  This  worship,  to  be  sure, 
expresses  some  eternal  principle.  To  secure 
the  Catholic  dogma  of  a  historical  continuity 
something  must  be  found  out  of  which  this  cult 
grew;  to  be  catholic  it  must  have  been  believed 
semper,  ubique  et  ah  omnibus.  The  eternal 
truth  that  divinity  could  be  mirrored  in  human- 
ity found  a  new  and  most  fruitful  expression. 
Perpetuate   this   expression   and  you   have  the 


i'J2         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

Jesus  cult.  According  to  Loisy  you  have  even 
more.  You  have  the  cult  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
Mother  of  God,  and  the  promiscuous  cult  of 
the  saints.  All  this  had  to  come.  Thus  wisdom 
is  justified  of  her  children  and  the  history  of 
the  church,  which  means  Catholicism,  supplies 
both  the  esse  and  the  posse  of  a  rational  and 
orthodox  Christianity.  (Vid.  Christliche  Welt 
15,  1909.)  Whether  the  explanation  will  be 
acceptable  will  depend  upon  one's  idea  of  the 
church;  the  important  thing  is  that  the  church 
soon  felt  herself  called  upon  and  competent  to 
make  the  extension. 

We  believe  that  Jesus  never  in  the  least  justi- 
fied or  encouraged  the  practise.  Nevertheless, 
the  Christians  of  the  first  century,  and  of  all 
following  centuries,  felt  little  compunction 
about  this  innovation;  they  probably  thought, 
if  they  thought  of  it  at  all,  that  they  were 
acting  in  his  spirit. 

It  was  easy  for  the  first  Christians  to  do  so. 
And  in  a  time  when  an  Antiochus  Epiphanes 
and  a  Seleucus  were  supposed  to  be  the  off- 
spring of  God  and  emperors  of  various  degrees 
were  supposed  to  share  the  dignity  and  honor 
of  divinity  itself,  they  could  without  difficulty 
take  the  final  step  which  Paul  always  hesitated 
to  take,  and  call  Jesus  God  outright.  Under 
the  stress  of  such  widespread  influences  the 
virgin-birth  stories  and  the  genealogies  going 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  103 

back,  as  in  Luke,  to  God  Himself,  took  their 
start. 

The  Graeco-Roman  world  had  accepted  Alex- 
ander as  a  son  of  Zeus  and  Olympias,  Augustus 
as  a  son  of  Jupiter  and  Attia,  Plato  as  a  son 
of  Apollo  and  Periktione.  Detailed  stories  of 
a  supernatural  origin  and  nature  were  told  of 
Rameses  II.,  Sargon,  Eakus,  Delphos,  Minosj 
Hercules,  Esculapius,  Scipio  Africanus,  Simon 
Magus,  and  a  host  of  other  gods,  and  kings, 
and  great  men.  Without  going  to  the  length 
of  claiming  that  these  stories  are  of  a  piece 
with  the  sublime  story  of  Jesus  Christ  one  may 
still  say,  unhesitatingly,  that  these  common  and 
all  but  universal  traditions  throw  a  flood  of 
light  on  the  New  Testament  efforts  in  an  anala- 
gous  field.  To  ignore  it  altogether  is  to  put 
the  life  of  Jesus  into  a  false  light. 

It  is  not  possible  to  trace  the  story  of  the 
application  of  such  ideas  to  the  Man  of  Naza- 
reth, the  Savior  of  men.  To  what  lengths  well 
intentioned  people  will  go  can  be  seen  in  the 
"  Ancient  Prayer"  abomination  that  is  bedevil- 
ing literally  millions  today.  This  religious  tit- 
bit, because  of  its  utter  fatuity  really  deserves 
to  be  buried  in  silence.  But  we  shall  append  the 
document  simply  as  a  sample  of  what  some  wor- 
shippers in  the  twentieth  century  can  fabricate 
and  endorse  and  pass  along,  now  that  we  had 
thought     the     shackles     of     superstition     had 


104         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

dropped  from  a  tortured  humanity.  It  will 
tend  to  make  us  modest  when  we  feel  inclined 
to  condemn  the  name-worshippers  and  fetish- 
worshippers  of  other  times  and  climes.  It  is 
painfully  evident  that  vast  numbers  of  Chris- 
tians are  today  supremely  indifferent  to  the 
work  done  by  the  biblical  scholar  and  the  histo- 
rian. This  "ancient  prayer"  letter  is  circulat- 
ing in  different  forms.     One  is  the  following: — 

"  'Oh,  Lord  Jesus,  I  implore  Thee  to  bless 
all  mankind!  Keep  us  from  all  evil  by  Thy 
precious  blood;  and  take  us  to  dwell  with  Thee 
in  eternity.'  This  was  sent  me  by  a  friend. 
Copy  it  and  see  what  will  happen.  It  is  said 
that  those  who  will  not  write  this  prayer  will 
meet  with  some  great  misfortune;  those  who 
will  write  it  nine  times  will  receive  some  great 
joy  on  the  ninth  day.  It  was  said  in  Jerusalem 
that  he  who  would  write  this  prayer  will  be 
delivered  from  all  evil  and  calamity.  Do  not 
break  this  chain.  Make  a  wish  while  writing 
this,  and  do  not  fail  to  write  it  nine  times  and 
send   it   to   nine   friends." — 

Fortunately  there  is  a  respectable  number 
of  recipients  who  are  willing  to  risk  the  danger 
of  breaking  the  chain,  otherwise  those  letters 
would  multiply  like  gnats  in  the  summer-time. 
But  it  is  a  melancholy  thought  which  is 
prompted  by  such  a  caricature  of  prayer.  How 
far  has  Christianity,  in  many  of  its  adherents. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  105 

travelled  from  the  simple  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ!  All  the  way  from  the  prayer  in  the 
spirit  and  truth  to  the  fetishism  that  adores 
the  true  cross  and  the  precious  blood,  that  seeks 
special  blessings  in  "making  a  wish"  over  letters 
concocted  of  childishness,  falsehood,  and  purest 
Aberglaube.  A  timely  pendent  is  supplied  by 
those  whose  finest  enthusiasm  for  Christian 
work  expresses  itself  in  the  desire  just  to  get 
into  heaven  and  to  look  on  the  Lord's  face. 
That  is  the  highest  ambition,  and  glory  enough 
for  man !     It  is  enough  to  make  angels  weep. 

WHAT    IS    CHRISTAIN    PEAYER.? 

How  a  man  prays  will  depend  upon  what 
kind  of  a  man  he  is.  What  he  is,  what  his 
nature  craves,  and  what  his  ideal  is,  will  be 
expressed  nowhere  so  well  as  in  his  prayers. 

All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God,  we  are 
told;  and  it  is  probably  true  that  a  prayer 
is  a  prayer  though  there's  nothing  in  it — but 
the  desire  to  pray.  To  be  sure,  there  is  a  vast 
difference  between  "  battering  the  gates  of 
heaven  with  storms  of  prayer,"  whether  in- 
dulged in  by  the  giants  of  the  religious  world 
or  by  a  despairing  castaway,  and  the  calm  inter- 
course between  soul  and  soul  that  alone  reaches 
the  heights  of  spiritual  adoration  and  aspira- 
tion; but  the  essential  character  of  prayer  as 
communion  with  God  is  thereby  not  affected. 

The  literature  on  prayer  has  grown  to  such 


106         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

proportions  that  it  is  sheer  interminable.  Al- 
though the  supposedly  materialistic,  if  not  athe- 
istic, spirit  of  the  age  has  forced  many  a  man 
to  confess,  with  Romanes,  "  I  have  not  prayed 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century,"  there  is  no  abate- 
ment either  in  praying  or  in  writing  about 
prayer.  The  soul,  which  is  "  incurably  religi- 
ous," cannot  help  it.  Man  does  not  need  to  try 
to  pray;  he  will  pray  in  spite  of  himself  and 
in  the  starkest  opposition  to  his  closet  philo- 
sophy. One  day  he  may  prove  all  prayer  ab- 
surd and  contrary  to  the  fixed  order  of  the 
universe,  and  the  next  may  see  him  on  his 
knees,  muttering  the  publican's  petition.  For 
we  are  all  human.  We  need  God,  and  man 
cannot  even  swear  without  praying:  every  male- 
diction is  a  concession  to  the  religious  claims 
of  humanity. 

And  since  the  claims  and  the  needs  are  various 
prayer  will  take  on  endless  forms.  "  To  one, 
prayer  is  chiefly  emotional  fellowship ;  to  an- 
other, it  is  more  largely  self-devotion  to  God- 
like moral  ideals;  to  a  third,  it  expresses  the 
impulse  to  action;  to  a  fourth,  it  is  reverent 
reflectiveness  in  the  presence  of  the  deepest 
truths  of  life  and  destiny."  (Coe,  The  Re- 
ligion of  a  Mature  Mind,  p.  356.)  It  is  the 
variable  and  always  varying  expression  of  the 
soul's  vitality. 

There  is  no  standard.     It  is  compatible  with 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  107 

the  most  extravagant  views  of  God  and  of  the 
soul.  A  praying  man  will  do  anything,  so 
he  but  express  himself.  He  will  use  the  language 
of  childish  superstition  which  debases  the  noblest 
end  of  devotion.  He  will  bully  the  universe 
on  the  assumption  that  his  prayer,  if  only  fer- 
vent enough,  will  be  omnipotent.  He  will  in- 
struct God  in  the  niceties  of  some  recondite 
and  palsied  theology.  He  will  challenge  the 
Power  that  is  over  all  to  do  its  worst  or  its 
best  for  foe  or  friend.  He  will  sing  Te  Deums 
in  the  midst  of  the  mutilated  bodies  of  thousands 
of  slaughtered  innocents.  He  will  grovel  in  the 
dust  a  crushed  sinner  or  hurl  back  upon  God 
the  imputation  that  mankind  is  to  be  blamed 
for  its  misdeeds,  and  that  He  had  better  man's 
forgiveness  give — or  take!  He  will  drive  bar- 
gains with  Heaven.  He  will  expect  the  repeti- 
tion of  a  set  form  of  words  to  act  like  a  charm, 
and  to  take  the  place  of  wisdom,  foresight, 
thrift,  and  work.  He  will  remind  the  Never- 
forgetting  One  of  His  promises,  and  impor- 
tune a  reluctant  Judge,  and  anticipate  the  nor- 
mal workings   of   His   world. 

Or  he  will  come  to  get  renewed  courage  and 
hope  and  strength  to  fight  life's  battle  like  a 
man.  He  will  remind  himself  of  the  benefic- 
ence of  God's  laws.  He  will  speak  his  thoughts, 
not  as  though  God  needed  to  be  told,  but  be- 
cause the  telling  brings   relief  and  clears  the 


108         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

way  for  wise  action.  He  will  use  the  language 
of  childlike  faith  which  a  loving  Father  knows 
how  to  interpret,  and  to  heed,  and  to  correct, 
and  to  discount,  if  need  be.  He  will  praise 
God  from  whom  all  mercies  flow  and  thank  the 
Lord  for  He  is  good,  for  His  lovingkindness 
endureth  forever.  He  will  make  God  a  confident 
in  all  his  plans,  trusting  that  wisdom  may  come 
to  him  in  the  quiet  hours  of  self-devotion  and 
meditation,  and  at  the  last  fall  asleep  a'babbl- 
ing  o'  green  fields  and  still  waters  where  the 
shepherd  of  souls  has  led  his  beloved. 

Wherever  man  aspires  or  hopes,  or  loves,  or 
works,  or  thinks  right  thoughts  he  prays,  i.  e., 
he  establishes  a  personal  relation  with  the  Power 
greater  than  himself  that  makes  for  justice 
and  law  and  goodness.  Essentially  it  turns  out  to 
be  a  co-operation  with  that  Power,  not  a  thau- 
maturgic  control  over  it.  This  co-operation 
may  go  to  the  extent  of  practical  identifica- 
tion with  it.  "Communion"  and  "union"  are 
no  farther  apart  in  being  than  in  language 
Language  is,  as  it  were,  but  a  vehicle  for  the 
transfer  of  spirit.  To  talk  means  to  transfer, 
communicate,  commit  one's  self  to  another  be- 
ing. Whether  there  come  any  special  favors 
by  way  of  response — ^vulgo,  answers — is  utterly 
beside  the  mark. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  109 

''  No,  be  man  and  nothing  more — 
Man  who,  as  man  conceiving,  hopes  and  fears. 
And  craves  and  deprecates,  and  loves  and  loathes. 
And  bids  God  help  him,  till  death  touch  his  eyes, 
And  show  God  granted  most,  denying  all. 

In  other  words,  the  reason  for  prayer  is 
found  somewhere  in  the  prayer  itself,  it  brings 
it's  own  reward;  it's  value  is  independent  of 
any  more  or  less  satisfactory  answers,  whose 
apologetic  usefulness  is  always  gauged  by  the 
antecedent  belief  or  unbelief  of  man. 

The  elements  of  normal  Christian  prayer  are : 
1.  that  God's  will  be  done;  2.  that  man  culti- 
vate the  frame  of  mind  in  which  he  will  be  glad 
to  assist  God  in  the  doing  of  His  will;  and  3. 
that  this  co-operation  bring  strength  and  peace 
and  satisfaction — a  sense  of  real  harmony  with 
God's  universe.  Needless  to  say,  the  action  of 
such  a  prayer  is  reciprocal:  man  acts  and  is 
acted  upon,  speaks  and  is  spoken  to,  thinks  and 
is  thought  of,  by  God. 

Who  or  what  is  this  being — God.^^  Prayer 
is  the  identification  and  communion  or  union 
with  God.  How  can  these  definitions  satisfy 
as  long  as  men  shall  fail  to  agree  on  the  nature 
of  that  being.?  Here  ignorance  extends  her 
sable  wand,  the  supreme  mistress  of  the  situa- 
tion. Agreeable  to  the  ancient  and  inherited 
custom,  it  is  here  that  the  ferocious  battle  of 
words  rages  most. 

As  many  gods,  so  many  kinds  of  prayer.    To 


110         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

say  that  prayer  is  addressed  to  God  only  simply 
means  confusion  doubly  confounded.  There 
are  cases  on  record  of  well-intentioned  preachers 
addressing  "The  Absolute"  in  prayer!  Self- 
communion — ^musing — has,  with  some,  all  the 
true  marks  of  prayer.  The  dead  yet  living 
ancestors  have  a  pretty  strong  claim  upon  be- 
ing among  the  original  objects  of  prayer.  The 
saints  are  held  to  pray  to  God,  and  many  pray 
to  them.  Mary,  the  "  Mother  of  God,"  and 
Jesus,  the  "  Son  of  God,"  have  both  their 
devotees  by  the  million.  Idol,  pagan  and  Chris- 
tian, receive  the  devotion  of  man  in  spite  of 
all  rationalisms  to  the  contrary.  And  nature 
worship  is,  as  shall  be  shown  farther  on,  much 
more  than  a  convenient  figure  of  speech.  These 
various  modes  of  worship  are  part  and  parcel 
of  our  humanity.  It  is  illusive  to  suppose  that 
we  can  slough  off  the  whole  coil  of  our  past 
history,  our  traditions  and  habits,  our  fears 
and  flickering  hopes  the  moment  we  have  in- 
vented the  intellectual  statement  as  the  expres- 
sion of  a  reasonable  conviction :  God  is  One. 

God  is  One.  So  be  it.  But  man  is  not  a 
mere  thinking  machine,  turning  out  syllogisms. 
He  is  swayed  by  many  feelings,  the  football 
of  many  forces.  If  the  worship  of  many  gods 
be  paganism,  there  is  much  paganism  in  Chris- 
tianity. Polytheism  was,  in  some  respects,  too 
good  a  guess  at  the  nature  of  the  universe  to 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  111 

be  thrown  out,  bag  and  baggage,  as  soon  as 
the  better  explanation  occurred  to  man.  Pan 
is  not  dead  yet,  pace  all  the  mournful  poets 
that  romanticism  has  produced. 

It  was  religion  that  found  tongue  in  all 
this  imperfect  and  ignorant  worship,  with  its 
rites,  and  incantations,  and  adjurations.  The 
world  sorely  needed  its  prophets ;  it  needed  Jesus 
Christ  to  declare  the  only  true  God  to  whom 
altars  had  been  reared  in  all  ages  and  in  all 
countries,  wherever  there  were  human  hearts 
and   human   needs. 

PRAYER    TO     JESUS    IN    MODERN     TIMES 

HYMNOLOGY 

The  prayer  chain  that  was  given  on  a  pre- 
vious page  represents,  confessedly,  an  extreme 
development  of  a  religious  cult  in  Christendom. 
It  would  be  unfair  to  leave  the  impression  that 
the  tendency  which  started  with  a  martyr's 
"  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit"  was  bound  to 
grow  into  such  a  vagary.  Extravagances  are 
marked  and  notable  only  because  they  are  an 
exaggeration   of  a  normal  type. 

We  believe  that  norm  to  be  present  in  the 
hymns  sung  by  the  church,  true  to  the  tradi- 
tion as  recorded  by  Pliny,  in  honor  of  Jesus. 

The  recorded  prayers  of  individuals,  Augus- 
tine's, Luther's,  Wesley's,  Beecher's  are  the  per- 
sonal expressions  of  private  opinion  and  feel- 


112         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

ing,  and  have  only  in  the  smallest  degree  be- 
come public  property ;  and  the  liturgical  prayers 
prescribed  by  the  rubric  of  special  denomina- 
tions are  the  official  declaration  only  of  the 
convictions  of  their  respective  communicants. 

Naturally  there  are  vast  differences.  It  is 
one  of  the  many  merits  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  that  its  prayers  avoid  the  invertebrate 
sentimentalism  which  intimacy  with  the  God  of 
Love  has  so  often  engendered.  Much  of  this 
historic  volume  has  been  outgrown,  some  of 
its  detailed  petitions  are  grotesquely  out  of 
place  in  the  mouth  of  a  modern  worshipper 
and  can  hardly  be  used  without  a  violent  wrench 
of  one's  sense  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things; 
thus  does  the  progress  of  the  ages  make  an- 
cient knowledge  uncouth.  Would  a  revision  elide 
these  objectionable  features.?  Hardly.  The 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  is  of  one  piece,  the 
splendid  embodiment  of  a  definite  historic  tem- 
per. It  is  a  historic  document.  Some  day 
a  new  one  may  do  for  coming  centuries  what 
it  has  done  for  the  past.  But  it  will  be  a  por- 
tentously difficult  task  to  improve  upon  its 
prayers.  They  do  not  speak  the  language  of 
immanence;  but  for  dignity  and  sobriety,  they 
are  wellnigh  inimitable.  A  cursory  reading, 
better  still,  the  habitual  use  of  the  various 
collects  will  fill  one  with  a  devout  admiration 
for  the  restraint  of  the  writers.     We  note,  in 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  113 

passing,  that  it  is  the  rarest  exception  where 
these  prayers  are  addressed  directly  to  Jesus. 
He  is  generally  introduced  in  the  stereotype 
phrase  that  concludes  most  of  them :  "  Through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.    Amen." 

It  is  the  hymns  of  Christendom  that  are  the 
common  possession  of  all  churches.  They  are 
sung  by  all  people.  Thinkingly  or  mechani- 
cally the  worshippers  have  repeated  the  old 
phrases  until  they  are,  today,  an  integral  part 
of  our  religion.  Many  a  person  may  not  be 
able  to  recite  a  single  psalm,  the  phrases  of 
his  daily  prayer  may  be  threadbare  from  over 
much  use,  but  it  will  go  hard  to  find  one  whose 
life  has  not  absorbed  several  of  the  old  hymns 
sung  by  father  and  mother  when  childhood  was 
impressionable  and  the  memory  fresh  and 
strong. 

These  hymns  are,  in  an  astonishingly  large 
number,  prayers  directed  to  the  exalted  Jesus. 
What  Jesus  is  to  the  authors  and  to  the  thought- 
ful singers  can  be  determined  by  an  examina- 
tion of  the  epithets  applied  to  Him. 

We  shall  take,  by  way  of  illustration,  the 
forty-nine  hymns  that  have  special  reference 
to  Jesus,  as  given  in  a  popular  hymnal  that 
is  used  by  many  churches  of  a  number  of  de- 
nominations. Other  hymnals  would  yield  a  simi- 
lar result. 

We    find    the    following: —     Lord,    Guard, 


114         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

Leader,  Christ,  Sun  of  my  Soul,  Savior  dear, 
Jesus,  Son,  Master,  (dear)  Redeemer,  David's 
Holy  Son,  Dear  Shepherd,  Incarnate  Word,  The 
Lord  my  Righteousness,  Jesus  Christ  our  King 
and  Head,  Christ  the  King  of  Glory,  Lamb, 
Matchless  King,  Lord  of  Love,  Lord  of  Heaven 
and  Earth,  Lord  of  Peace,  Prince  of  Peace, 
Lord  of  Years,  Potentate  of  Time,  Creator 
of  the  Rolling  Spheres,  Jesus  Holy  Jesus,  Lord 
of  All,  My  God  and  King,  My  gracious  Master 
and  my  God,  Our  Holy  Lord  and  King  (to 
thee  alone  we  sing).  Brother,  Friend,  Jesus  the 
God  of  Love,  Prince  of  Glory,  Eternal  King, 
King  Triumphant,  King  of  Angels,  The  In- 
carnate Deity,  Jesus  our  Immanuel,  Sun  of 
Righteousness,  Son  of  God,  Son  of  Man,  Judge, 
Man  of  Sorrows,  The  Resurrection  Thou,  Con- 
queror, etc.,  etc.  This  list  could  be  extended 
ad  lihitum,  so  as  to  include  thousands  of  names 
and  descriptive  terms.  (Cf.  Boehmer's  study 
of  the  subject,  Studier-Stuhe  1905.) 

A  special  subdivision  contains  twenty-nine 
hymns  of  "  Communion  with  Christ,"  and  the 
prayers  that  follow  are  practically  all  addressed 
to  him.  Some  of  the  finest  and  most  endear- 
ing songs  of  the  church  need  but  be  mentioned 
to  show  what  a  hold  this  practise  has  on  the  wor- 
shippers. For  here  we  find  Bernard  de  Clair- 
vaux's  O  Jesus,  King  most  wonderful.  Thou 
Conqueror  renowned;  Jesus,  I  love  Thy  charm- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  115 

ing  Name,  'Tis  music  to  mine  ear;  Jesus,  the 
very  thought  of  Thee,  With  sweetness  fills  my 
breast ;  Wesley's  Love  Divine,  all  love  excelling ; 
O  Holy  Savior,  Friend  unseen;  I  am  Thine, 
O  Lord,  I  have  heard  Thy  voice ;  Blessed  Savior, 
Thee  I  love;  Savior,  more  than  life  to  me,  I 
am  clinging,  clinging  close  to  Thee;  Come, 
my  soul,  thy  suit  prepare,  Jesus  loves  to  an- 
swer prayer;  Pass  me  not,  O  gentle  Savior, 
Hear  my  humble  cry;  More  love  to  Thee,  O 
Christ. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  the  reader  of 
such  lists  is  the  remarkable  wealth  of  descrip- 
tive names  which  piety  has  coined;  the  second 
is  the  recurrence  of  those  lordly  and  kingly 
terms,  that  emphasize  the  transcendence  of 
Jesus  over  man  and  over  all.  These  hymn- 
books  cultivate  a  rather  robust  faith  in  the 
majestic  power  and  glory  of  the  Master.  They 
are  (let  us  be  grateful  for  that!)  refreshingly 
free  from  the  sickening  sweetishness  that  makes 
so  many  hymns  of  the  pietists  offensive  to 
modem  taste:  Sweet  Jesus,  Darling  Jesus,  My 
Sweet  Heart,  My  Lovely  Bridegroom  et  id 
genus  omne.  Many  a  worshipper  during  the 
renaissance  preferred  to  donate  to  his  church 
a  St.  Sebastian  rather  than  a  Peter  or  a  John 
because  St.  Sebastian  was  pictured  as  a  comely, 
athletic  youth,  good  to  look  upon ;  so  the  post- 
reformation  days  often  cultivated  this  ecstatic. 


116         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

neurotic  style,  in  which  the  most  delicate  affairs 
of  private  life  were  allegorized  and  spiritualized 
into  religion,  and  the  language  past  muster 
just  because  it  betokened  an  intimate  relation 
with  the  Heart  of  hearts.  What  is  religion  but 
a  perfect  abandon,  anyway?  The  melodies  of 
ancient  love  songs  had  done  service  in  the 
churches,  tavern  doggerel  had  supplied  the  text 
for  chants,  a  Song  of  Solomon  had  been  twisted 
into  a  parable  of  Christ  the  Bridegroom  and 
the  Church  his  Bride;  then  why  not  draw  upon 
the  phraseology  of  youthful  love  to  depict  the 
sweet  experiences  of  the  soul?  Wesley  invokes 
"  Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul,  Let  me  to  Thy  bosom 
fly;"  the  followers  of  Zinzendorf  went  farther, 
and  the  only  reason  many  of  their  songs  are 
not  classed  with  erotic  literature  is  that  they 
are,  at  the  worst,  still  the  vehicle  of  true  religi- 
ous adoration. 

It  is  mainly,  then,  as  the  Lord  of  all  things 
that  Jesus  is  invoked  in  our  songs.  On  this 
idea  the  changes  are  rung  in  every  key  and 
mood.  Of  course,  the  man  in  the  pew,  and, 
too  often,  the  man  in  the  pulpit  too,  is  per- 
fectly innocent  of  any  attempt  to  justify  this 
procedure.  He  sings  thus  because  the  church 
sings  thus,  and  he  prays  to  Jesus  because  his 
father  did  so  before  his  time,  and  there  is  an 
end  of  the  matter. 

And  many  a  person  who  would  have  liked 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  IIT 

to  ask  questions  has  found  the  path  blocked 
with  the  equation  Jesus-God,  and  for  fear  of 
getting  entangled  in  the  briars  of  all  the  here- 
sies has  returned  the  way  whence  he  had  come. 
There  is  no  use  in  verbal  niceties  and  philo- 
sophical refinements  and  subtle  distinctions  when 
the  church  has  settled  it  for  all  times.  And 
so  he  will  sing  vociferously,  because  unthink- 
ingly, "Hark,  ten  thousand  harps  and  voices 
sound  the  note  of  praise  above !  Jesus  reigns  and 
Heaven  rejoices.  Jesus  reigns,  the  God  of 
Love.  See!  He  sits  on  yonder  throne!  Jesus 
rules  the  world  alone!" 

Our  hymn-books  are  full  of  such  sentiments. 
Whether  *'  Jesus"  is  used  or  "  God"  will  often 
depend  upon  the  exigencies  of  the  rhyme  or  the 
rhythm.  The  popular  taste  is  not  very  particu- 
lar in  such  matters :  all  people  who  are  not 
white  are  black;  stones  have  one  color,  to  wit, 
stone-color;  one  star  differeth  not  from  another 
in  glory;  a  whale  is  a  fish;  and  the  Bible  is 
the  word  of  God. 

A  passage  in  the  Journal  Intvme  of  Amiel  is 
not  without  interest  in  this  connection: — 

Every  religion  proposes  an  ideal  and  a  model. 
The  Christian  ideal  is  sublime,  and  its  model 
of  a  divine  beauty.  We  may  hold  aloof  from 
the  churches,  and  yet  bow  ourselves  before 
Jesus.  We  may  be  suspicious  of  the  clergy, 
and  refuse  to  have  anything  to  do  with  cate- 


118         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

chisms,  and  yet  love  the  Holy  and  the  Just, 
who  came  to  save  and  not  to  curse.  Jesus  will 
always  supply  us  with  the  best  criticism  of 
Christianity,  and  when  Christianity  has  passed 
away  the  religion  of  Jesus  will  in  all  proba- 
bility survive.  After  Jesus  as  God  we  shall 
come  back  to  faith  in  the  God  of  Jesus. 

But  to  distinguish  here  and  to  draw  lines 
is  not  without  danger  to  the  peace  of  many 
a  mind.  Fine  discrimination  is,  in  the  large 
matters  of  religion,  a  passport  to  the  synthesis 
of  all  the  heresies.  And  when  all  has  been  said 
that  can  be  said,  there  may  still  be  some  good 
reason  for  this  popular  choice.  Lampe  must 
have  his  religion,  too;  and  that  religion  must 
be  practical.  It  must  work;  and  if  it  works, 
it  must  be  true. 

And  there  is  no  denying  that  this  religion, 
though  it  is  not  and  never  was  the  Christianity 
of  Christ,  has  been  helpful  to  millions.  We 
are  all  distant  relations  of  poor  Lampe,  though 
it  may  be  a  bit  humiliating  to  acknowledge 
the  impeachment.  In  the  shadow  of  the  valley 
of  death,  at  the  brink  of  the  grave,  on  the 
battle-field,  and  in  the  agony  of  mortal  disease 
men  have  spoken  to  Jesus  the  Sympathizer  and 
have  been  strengthened  for  their  final  struggle. 
Victory  has  come  to  their  cause  and  peace  to 
their  souls,  and  they  were  convinced  that  their 
prayers   were   heard.      There   are   many   ways 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  119 

of  praying,  and  they  may  all  be  genuine.    The 
results  prove  them  to  be  so. 

THE  REASONS  FOR   PRAYER  TO   JESUS 

We  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  reason  why 
so  many  prefer  to  address  their  prayer  to  Jesus. 
It  is  certain  that  the  great  majority  take  their 
prayers  and  their  hymns  ready-made  and  ask 
no  questions  for  comfort's  sake.  These  do  not 
concern  us.  But  when  a  Wesley,  or  Luther,  or 
Doddridge  falls  into  the  habit  it  cannot  be  put 
down  to  plain  carelessness.  There  must  be  seri- 
ous reasons  that  weigh  heavier  than  any  scruples 
to  encroach  upon  the  sovereignty  of  God.  We 
shall  mention  four  of  the  more  prominent  ones. 

I.  The  overpowering  feeling  of  gratitude  to 
Jesus. 

That  the  intense  absorption  into  the  suffer- 
ings of  Jesus,  the  pious  contemplation  of  the 
five  wounds  should  seek  and  find  expression  in 
more  or  less  ecstatic  utterances  addressed  to  the 
Man  of  Sorrows  could  have  been  foreseen.  The 
history  of  monastic  Christianity  gives  many  an 
episode  of  religious  self -hypnosis  induced  by  the 
prolonged  study  of  Jesus'  passion.  The  classic 
case  is  that  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  With 
him  and  his  congeners  abnegation  and  castiga- 
tion  and  mortification  become  the  virtues  of  re- 
ligion not  only  because  the  flesh  needed  to  be 
curbed    and    the  world  denied  and    the    devil 


120         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

shunned,  but  because  the  divine  life  of  the  Lord 
had  ended  in  such  a  painful  fashion.  The 
disciple  would  be  no  better  than  the  Master. 

But  aside  from  that,  vicarious  suffering  will 
always  compel  the  sympathy  of  man.  Greater 
love  has  no  man  than  that  he  will  give  his  life 
for  his  friends.  The  human  heart  naturally 
responds  to  any  genuine  sacrifice.  Who  has 
not  caught  himself,  on  the  receipt  of  some  favor, 
audibly  thanking  the  thoughtful  friend  for  his 
kindness  or  his  devotion?  That  at  the  moment 
he  was  a  thousand  miles  away  made  no  differ- 
ence. 

The  circumstantial  account  of  what  Jesus 
had  experienced  during  the  last  few  days  of 
his  life,  especially  when  interpreted  in  the  light 
of  some  atonement  doctrine,  was  enough  to 
prompt  psalms  of  thanksgiving  in  any  but  the 
most  selfish  hearts.  No  language  was  expres- 
sive enough  to  do  proper  obeisance  to  the  sacred 
Head,  now  wounded,  with  grief  and  shame 
weighed  down,  now  scornfully  surrounded  with 
thorns,  its  only  crown.  Innocent  suffering  out- 
rages the  human  sense  of  justice  and  it  puts 
the  beneficiary  under   eternal  obligations. 

So,  in  moments  of  patriotic  exaltation,  we 
thank  our  forefathers,  under  the  spell  of  ora- 
torical persuasion,  for  their  heroic  patience,  for 
enduring  the  hardships  of  pioneers,  for  labor- 
ing that  we  might  enjoy  and  battling  that  we,, 
their  children,  might  have  peace. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  121 

This  is  more  than  rhetoric.  A  worthy  child 
must  feel  grateful  for  all  this.  Building  monu- 
ments and  observing  memorials  is  the  least  it 
will  do.  It  will  voice  its  feelings  in  words,  and 
then  nothing  will  be  more  natural  than  the 
apostrophe  of  thanksgiving. 

Among  the  Japanese  Christians  the  custom 
is  still  observed  of  thus  addressing  the  souls  of 
the  departed.  When  their  beloved  missionary, 
Dr.  Cate,  died,  his  spirit  was  invoked:  "How 
can  we  who  have  been  taught  and  led  by  you 
fail  to  be  stimulated  by  your  example  to  do 
aU  we  can  to  carry  out  your  wishes?  When 
you  fell  asleep,  we  were  given  strength.  .  .  .Be 
at  rest.  The  liberality,  the  sympathy,  the 
patience,  the  many  fine  traits  of  character  which 
your  life  taught  us,  along  with  your  departed 
spirit,  will  ever  abide  in  us.  You  will  remain 
our  teacher  for  all  times.  You  are  not  dead. 
You  live  and  work  among  us  still."  .  .  .  (Com- 
pare The  Open  Court,  June,  1909.) 

And  even  those  believers  who  may  refuse  to 
submit  to  the  spell  which  the  cross  on  Calvary 
exerts  will  find  in  their  own  spiritual  experiences 
a  point  of  contact  with  the  Man  of  Nazareth. 
He  is  the  pathetic  figure  in  history.  And  deep 
speaks  unto  deep.  What  Jesus  did,  or  tried 
to  do  against  insuperable  odds,  as  it  turned 
out,  will  elicit  a  response  in  every  heart  that 
has  ever  aspired  or  loved  and  lost.     Mankind 


ia«         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

will  ever  be  debtor  to  him  for  his  life  and  his 
influence.  It  is  natural  to  want  to  thank  him 
for  this  gift. 

II.  The  doctrine  of  God's   transcendence. 

The  inane  function  which  was  once  given 
to  God  of  sitting  apart  and  watching  the  world 
go  round  lost  considerable  credit  when  men  once 
began  to  think  seriously  of  the  Pauline  state- 
ment, "  In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being."  And  what  little  credit  was  left  went 
the  moment  the  modem  conception  of  God  took 
the  field. 

Much  has  been  written  about  the  rediscovery 
of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  the  rediscovery  of 
God  that  made  it  impossible  for  many  a  devout 
soul  to  off^er  prayer  to  Jesus.  The  paradox 
was  solved — as  we  shall  try  to  show — with  those 
who  took  the  logical  step  and  conceded  that 
all  life  and  movement  and  being  could  be  predi- 
cated as  consisting  in  God.  That  did  not 
debase  God,  and  it  certainly  did  not  debase 
His  universe. 

But  there  was  a  bogy  that  frightened  many 
an  honest  soul  from  going  to  such  lengths. 
With  most  believers  there  has  never  been  any 
serious  danger  that  God  get  too  near  man.  The 
difficulty  has  been  in  the  other  direction:  God 
was  too  far  off  from  us.  The  Great  Unknown 
dwelt  on  the  limits  or,  better  still,  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  cosmos,  and  it  was  the  business 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  123 

of  prayer  to  bridge  this  yawning  chasm.  It 
is  no  exaggeration,  but  the  soberest  truth,  when 
we  say  that  for  the  vast  majority  of  mankind 
God  lives  "  in  heaven."  "  Our  Father  who  art 
in  W5"  would  be  blasphemy  to  them.  "  Our 
Father  in  whom  we  are"  would  be  nonsense. 

Both  science  and  theology  are  responsible  for 
this  condition.  The  physicist  and  the  theolo- 
gian, jointly,  secularized  the  universe,  so  to 
speak,  and  God  was  pushed  out,  step  by  step, 
from  one  department  to  another  until  He 
reached  the  starting-point;  creation  was  the 
jumping-ofF  place.  And  the  doctrine  of  the 
eternity  of  matter,  or,  what  amounts  to  the 
same  thing,  the  persistence  of  energy  refused 
even  that  last  foot-hold  to  the  God  of  our 
fathers.  Second  causes  were  held  to  explain 
all.  Law  with  a  capital  letter  assumed  the  scep- 
ter wrested  from  the  Almighty's  hand,  and  the 
Final  Cause  retired  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
finest  instrument  and  the  subtlest  mind. 

Does  God  transcend  His  world.?'  Most 
assuredly,  if  He  is  what  is  generally  meant  by 
a  God.  Transcendence  is  a  mighty,  magnifi- 
cent truth.  And  this  truth  has  given  theology 
its  dignity.  What  is  man  that  God  should 
be  mindful  of  him.?  Before  God  the  nations 
are  as  a  drop  of  the  bucket,  as  grasshoppers, 
as  grass  that  is  cast  into  the  oven  and  burned. 
He  is  from  everlasting  to  everlasting.     Before 


124         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

the  mountains  were  made  He  was.  We  became, 
God  is  the  ever-present  I  Am.  Men  say  that 
astronomy  enlarges  the  mind.  Theology  begins 
where  astronomy  ends.  Small  visions  mean 
small  ideals,  small  aims  are  incompatible  with 
thinking  God's  thoughts. 

It  may  be  that  the  greatness  of  God  will 
belittle  man.  Mountains  make  cathedrals  ridi- 
culously small.  This  has  certainly  been  the 
practical  result  in  Christendom.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  Calvin's  glorious  scheme  did  justice 
to  the  freedom  and  the  sovereignty  of  man,  the 
crown  of  creation,  difficult  as  we  may  find  it 
to  escape  his  logic  about  God.  But  that  is 
due  to  the  incapacity  of  the  human  understand- 
ing. The  mind  has  to  assent  to  the  argu- 
ments for  the  greatness  of  God,  though  the 
heart  will  straightway  refuse  to  admit  the  full 
consequences.  Still,  both  the  Calvins  and  the 
Darwins  of  the  past  succeeded  in  putting  a 
great  'gulf  between  heaven  and  earth  which 
it  was  very  hard  to  leap.  This  was  not  their 
intention.  Darwin,  especially,  protests  empha- 
tically and  repeatedly  in  The  Origin  of  Species 
against  the  idea  that  the  rejection  of  special 
providences  need  be  construed  into  a  removal 
of  God  from  the  world.  The  protest  was,  as 
is  usual  in  such  cases,  entirely  ignored. 

But  no  matter  what  the  intentions  were,  the 
net  result  of  all  these  speculations  and  investi- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  125 

gations,  of  theologic  affirmation  and  scientific 
negation  was  that  God  had  been  silenced.  Like 
Elijah  of  old  the  skeptic  stood  and  mocked: 
"  Cry  aloud :  for  He  is  a  god :  either  He  is 
musing,  or  He  is  gone  aside,  or  He  is  on  a 
journey,  or  peradventure  He  sleepeth  and  must 
be  awaked."  But  there  was  no  voice,  nor  any 
that  answered. 

And  lo!  here  was  an  intermediary!  Jesus 
stood  at  the  threshold  of  the  modern  era  and 
revealed  his  God  to  man.  Men  had  thought 
that  those  who  had  seen  him  had  seen  the 
Father.  God  was  invisible,  dwelling  in  a  light 
where  no  man  cometh;  Jesus  was  a  living, 
breathing,  sympathizing  personality.  In  him 
God  descended  to  earth.  Heaven  and  earth 
kissed  each  other.  The  word  became  flesh,  and 
we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  of  the  unique 
Son  of  God.  Moreover,  this  flesh-and-blood 
Jesus  had  felt  our  weaknesses;  we  were  sure 
he  would  know  how  to  help  us;  he  had  been 
tempted;  we  were  sure  he  would  make  allow- 
ances. He  was  bone  of  our  bone,  whereas  God 
was  everlasting,  without  body,  parts,  or  pas- 
sions, of  infinite  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness 
etc. 

It  may  be  said,  parenthetically,  that  these 
creeds  with  their  statements  concerning  God 
would,  of  themselves,  have  been  enough  to  drive 
many  a  hungry  soul  to  pray  to  Jesus — if  in 


126         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

them  Jesus  himself  had  not  been  made  even 
more  unreal  and  phantastic  than  God.  The 
church,  as  distinguished  from  the  priesthood, 
was  less  concerned  about  the  purity  of  the  doc- 
trine than  about  religion.  It  wanted  to  wor- 
ship. And  since  God  had  quit  the  field  and  had 
retired  into  the  empyrean  of  theologic  fog  Jesus 
became,  with  millions,  the  natural  object  of  the 
manifold  petitions  and  thanksgivings.  When 
Jesus,  too,  retired  under  the  pressure  of  the 
creeds,  or  rather  of  the  temper  that  produced 
the  creeds,  Mary  and  all  the  saints  filled  the 
breach.  The  distance  between  God  and  man 
may  be  measured  by  the  number  of  intermedi- 
aries thought  necessary  to  carry  the  mortal's 
prayers  to  their  destination.  This  applies  to 
Jews,  Mahommedans,  Pagans  and  Christians — 
wherever  the  cult  of  saints  has  gained  a  foot- 
hold. 

III.  The  holiness  of  God. 

God's  transcendence  is  of  cosmic  significance; 
His  holiness  is  ethical.  In  the  first  place  it  is 
a  question  whether  finite  man  can,  by  any  pos- 
sibility, approach  God;  in  the  second  it  is  a 
question  whether  sinful  man  ought,  by  any 
canons  of  propriety,  to  approach  Him.  The 
sinner  feels  that  he  dare  not  come,  and  has 
no  right  to  come,  into  the  presence  of  the  Just 
and  Holy  One. 

It  has  been  the  weak  spot  in  so  much  of  our 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  127 

much  vaunted  socalled  liberal  thinking  that  it 
has  been  frivolous  in  its  conception  of  a  holy 
God.  It  has  tried  to  persuade  itself  into  be- 
lieving that  whatever  is  is  eternally  right.  When 
Renan  and  Emerson  and  Arnold  wrote  about 
the  universe  they  did  not,  like  Old  Testament 
prophets,  first  think  of  the  moral  order  of  the 
universe,  that  could  be  broken  into  and  shat- 
tered. Sin  has  been  thinned  out  into  weakness 
or  immaturity.  Murder  is  insanity,  as  the  law 
deponeth.  Twentieth  century  pseudo-philoso- 
phy has  at  last  caught  the  old  serpent  and 
drawn  her  poison  fangs:  behold!  they  were 
nothing  but  an  error  of  mortal  mind. 

With  anyone  to  whom  sin  appears  in  its 
oldtime  aspect  of  a  monstrous  diabolical  wrong, 
a  veritable  snake  in  the  garden  of  plenty,  a 
holy  God  is  sure  to  strike  terror  to  the  imagina- 
tion. Sacrificial  rites  have  never  lacked  the 
appeasing  element;  the  angry  god  was  to  be 
mollified,  the  primordial  demands  for  justice 
were  to  be  satisfied.  Hecatombs  became,  in 
many  an  instance,  a  sop  offered  to  an  outraged 
deity  that  wanted  blood.  It  got  blood,  catar- 
acts of  blood.  The  history  of  religion  is 
written  in  blood.  The  Druid  in  his  grove,  the 
Baal  priest  on  Carmel,  the  Levite  in  the  temple, 
the  Indian  under  juggernaut,  the  dervish  on 
his  cruel  hooks,  all  and  many  more  swelled  the 
sanguinary  flood.  What  will  a  man  not  give 
to  save  his  soul.?     Even  his  first-born. 


128         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

It  is  a  pleasant,  but  altogether  delusive, 
flattery  to  suppose  that  Christianity  could,  over 
night,  cast  off  this  burden  of  our  common  hu- 
manity. The  sacrifice,  indeed,  went ;  the  final  en- 
tering into  the  holy  place,  once  for  all  time,  of 
the  great  high-priest  of  souls  completed  and 
abolished  that  system  for  most  Christians. 
Though  even  here  one  is  bound  to  walk  cir- 
cumspectly when  one  thinks  of  the  vestiges  of 
paganism  that  survive  in  the  numerous  super- 
stitious practises  among  supposedly  Christian 
peoples.  But  the  grand,  aboriginal  superstition 
has  persisted  through  all  the  changes  of  time, 
namely,  that  a  holy  God  can  be  appeased,  if 
not  through  a  bloody  or  bloodless  offering,  then 
through  the  intercession  of  some  especially  in- 
fluential person. 

The  barbarism  of  an  appeased  or  appeasable 
god  is  moribund,  but  one  can  easily  gauge  the 
potency  of  the  intercession  idea  by  a  survey 
of  our  hymnology  with  its  one  hundred  and 
one  variations  on  the  tune,  "  Jesus  plead  for 
me."  These  songs  are  sung  today;  they  form 
a  surprisingly  large  proportion  of  the  contents 
of  most  hymnals. 

Any  possible  disclaimers  to  the  effect  that 
Jesus  would  not  pray  to  the  Father  for  us  are 
immediately  negatived  with  the  decisive  refer- 
ence to  the  universal  practise  of  mankind  (when 
did  one  man  ever  refuse  to  pray  for  another.'') 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  129 

and  to  the  particular  case  of  the  Lord  of  whom 
the  gospel  even  records  a  complete,  ready-made 
sample  of  an  intercessory  prayer. 

But  let  an  intermediary,  a  mediator  once 
come  between  an  austere  God  and  a  trembling, 
fearful  sinner  and  it  will  soon  be  discovered  that 
it  is  not  every  man's  privilege  to  preserve  his 
doctrine  of  monotheism  intact.  There  is  much 
praying  to  Jesus  which  it  would  be  false  to 
call  polytheistic,  all  the  once  common  unitarian 
claims  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding;  and 
it  is  a  cogent  question  whether  we  shall  ever 
discover  a  better  formula  than  that  of  the  trin- 
ity with  which  to  explain  the  inexplicable,  and 
to  define  the  indefinable,  God.  Yet  who  would 
deny  that  for  vast  multitudes  of  Christianized 
people  the  doctrine  of  the  trinity  is  absolutely 
indistinguishable  from  the  crassest  polytheism.'* 

To  the  average  mind  yonder  was  an  inac- 
cessible being  who  dwelt  in  serene  loftiness,  in 
a  purity  that  burned  like  fire.  No  mortal  could 
look  on  him  and  live.  And  here  was  another 
being,  a  sympathizing  man  who  was  sinless,  who 
had  somehow  escaped  the  universal  taint.  He 
shared  God's  nature  and  could  therefore  com- 
mune with  Him.  It  is  not  clear  how  god-fear- 
ing yet  god-seeking  sinners  could  have  failed 
to  avail  themselves  of  his  good  graces.  Chris- 
tianity said,  God  is  love;  conscience  said,  the 
greater    the    love  the   greater  the    holy    zeal 


130         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

against  unrequited  love;  and  in  desperation 
mankind  flung  itself  upon  the  bosom  of  Jesus. 
He,  at  least,  would  understand. 

This  line  of  approach  to  Jesus  was  not  fol- 
lowed by  all  Christians.  The  person  who  has 
drawn  the  full  consequences  of  the  gospel  truth 
that  God  is  love  is  not  impressed  very  much  with 
the  benefits  of  such  a  roundabout  way  to  God. 
He  will  insist  that  in  prayer,  too,  a  straight  line 
is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points, 
especially  when  there  are  no  obstructions  lying 
between.  However,  there  is  no  doubt  that  to 
many  the  way  around  is  not  just  the  best  but 
the  only  possible  way  into  heaven.  It  avoids 
the  wall  of  living  fire  which  is  raised  between 
the  uncleanness  of  man  and  the  holiness  of  God. 

IV.  The  dogma  of  the  deity  of  Christ. 

Standing,  as  we  do,  in  the  midst  of  the  battle 
that  is  going  on  today  about  the  personality 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  remembering  how  little, 
after  all,  avail  the  offensive  debates  on  this 
age-old  problem,  it  will  be  our  duty  to  be 
modest  about  any  claims  or  denials  we  may 
all  personally  be  inclined  to  make. 

Most  sane  people  believe  that  Jesus  was 
divine.  It  is  the  fine  distinctions  that  are  drawn 
after  this  is  stated  that  invite  the  odium  and 
the  recriminations  among  a  certain  class  of  the- 
ologians. 

Now  when  a  man  asseverates  such  a  belief 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  131 

it  is  only  a  matter  of  common  politeness  for 
the  rest  to  take  him  at  his  word  and  not  to 
give  him  the  lie  direct  by  telling  him  that  he 
does  not  mean  what  he  says,  that  his  word 
"divine"  does  not  signify  divine,  that  he  has 
no  right  to  appropriate  venerable  language  to 
serve  his  oblique  purposes,  or  whatever  else  the 
sense  of  propriety  may  suggest  at  the  moment. 
Language  was  made  for  man;  and  besides,  no 
two  men  mean  identically  the  same  thing  when 
they  use  the  word  "horse."  Divinity,  what- 
ever it  may  all  be,  is  certainly  bigger  than  any 
man's — ^though  he  were  a  Solomon — conception 
about  it.  The  person  who  most  abuses  language 
is  he  who  would  make  it  a  desiccated,  leathern 
mummy.  When  such  a  one  objects:  "X.  does 
not  believe  in  the  divinity  of  Christ,"  he  only 
means,  though  he  does  not  think  of  it,  that 
X.  does  not  believe  in  the  particular  construc- 
tion it  has  pleased  the  objector  and  his  com- 
panions to  put  upon  that  flexible  word  "divin- 
ity." We  repeat,  most  modem  people  admit 
that  Jesus  was  divine. 

But  the  ways  diverge  the  moment  we  attempt 
definition.  Latet  dolus  in  generalihus,  likewise 
in  specifications!  And  yet  there  is  a  common 
ground.  Even  the  stifFest,  most  inveterate 
Jesus-worshipper  will  hesitate  to  admit  that 
the  two  terms  God  and  Jesus  are  in terchan  gable 
oflPhand,   meaning  practically   the   same  thing, 


132  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  synonyms.  There 
is  a  difference.  And  where  there  is  a  difference 
there  is  not  identity,  notwithstanding  all  the 
verbiage  of  the  Athanasian  symbol.  Our 
clumsy,  imperfect  language  hints  at  this  condi- 
tion, offering  us  the  words  divinity  and  deity 
(Goettlichheit  and  Gottheit).  Some,  indeed, 
aver  that  they  see  no  more  difference  between 
them  than  between  the  old-fashioned  tweedle- 
dum and  tweedle-dee,  and  it  is  not  very  helpful 
to  talk  about  nuances  to  people  who  admit 
they  cannot  see.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  two 
terms  would  not  be  in  existence  if  they  were 
not  both  needed  to  describe  the  true  state  of 
affairs. 

And  on  the  other  hand — for  it  will  not  pro- 
fit much  to  thresh  over  the  musty  straw  of 
this  controversy — ^there  are  people  to  whom  the 
deity  of  Jesus  Christ  presents  no  difficulties 
who  yet  refuse,  peremptorily,  to  pray  to  Jesus 
as  God.  How  can  these  things  be?  asks  the 
unsophisticated  man  who  does  not  believe  that 
consistency  is  a  vice  of  small  minds.  We  do 
not  stop  to  inquire;  we  only  state  the  fact  that 
we  have  met  with  such. 

In  general,  however,  it  may  be  claimed  that 
the  deity  of  Jesus  and  prayer  to  him  stand 
and  fall  together.  Many  mortals  feel  the  need 
of  prayer.  Jesus  is  God  because  they  pray  to 
him;  most  mortals  will  pray  to   a  god  when 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  133 

they  pray  at  all.  Jesus  is  God,  therefore  they 
pray  to  him.  And  this  is  probably  the  main 
reason  for  worship.  God  and  worship  are  coter- 
minous. Prayer  is,  in  a  large  sense,  union 
and  communion  with  the  god  or  the  gods  of 
the  worshipper. 

The  worship  of  saints  is  no  exception  to  this 
general  rule.  It  would  contribute  much  to  the 
clearness  of  thought  if  the  undeniable  fact  were 
always  given  its  due  weight  that  many  a  ven- 
erable saint  on  the  calendar  is  nothing  but  an 
old  pagan  god  redivivus.  Diana  and  Escula- 
pius  and  Venus  and  the  whole  pantheon  of  gods 
could  be  Christianized  as  well  as  their  adorers. 
For  the  nations,  on  assuming  Christianity,  were 
not  so  glibly  to  be  cheated  out  of  their  old 
divinities;  they  burned  their  idols  and  then 
transferred  the  idol  attributes  to  some  respect- 
able Christian  names  that  enjoyed  the  odor  of 
sanctity.  They  were  the  old  friends  in  new 
faces,  and  the  church  was  satisfied,  and  the 
converts  were  satisfied  too.  In  St.  Peter's  in 
Rome  stands  a  statue  said  to  have  been  cast 
by  Leo  the  Great  from  an  ancient  Jupiter 
Capitolinus,  and  it  is  now  called  St.  Peter — the 
object  of  the  veneration  of  millions.  Which 
things,  as  Paul  saith,  contain  an  allegory. 

Jesus  Christ  is  not  Marduk  or  any  other 
Gentile  divinity;  least  of  all  is  he  a  myth.  He 
was  a  real  personality,  who  lived  in  an  ascer- 


134         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

tainable  time,  in  a  definite  place.  His  moral 
greatness  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  creations 
of  man's  imagination  that  invented  three-headed 
gods  and  other  monstrosities  to  pray  to.  His 
contemporaries,  who  also  had  some  judgment, 
beheld  in  him  a  splendor  as  of  another  world. 
It  took  some  time  to  draw  the  inevitable  con- 
sequences from  all  the  testimony  of  what  he 
had  said  and  done.  These  his  contemporaries 
were  like  other  people,  and  by  that  token,  were 
unable  to  see  the  whole  truth  as  it  was  revealed 
in  Jesus.  They  could  not  bear  it  then.  But 
when,  dispassionately  and  without  any  undue 
haste,  the  sympathetic  mind  sifted  and  weighed 
the  record  it  was  seen  that  in  Jesus,  God  Him- 
self had  walked  on  earth,  that  in  him  God 
had  got  nearer  to  humanity  than  ever  before — 
and  we  today  can  say,  heartily,  than  ever  since. 

These  we  believe  to  be  the  four  chief  reasons 
for  prayer  to  Jesus.  He  deserves  the  thanks 
of  mankind  for  his  unselfish  devotion  to  its 
welfare ;  he  has  bridged  the  yawning  chasm  be- 
tween heaven  and  earth;  he  has  brought  peace 
to  souls  justly  troubled  about  their  sins,  their 
transgressions  of  the  laws  of  a  holy  God;  he 
has  presented  himself  to  mankind  as  the  very 
embodiment  or  personification,  the  truest  expres- 
sion, so  far,  of  the  great  Goodness  we  call  God. 

Accordingly  he  has  been  held  worthy  to 
be  praised,  quasi  deo,  even  until  this  day. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  135 

One  word  needs  to  be  added.  Even  the  Chris- 
tians who  cannot  honestly  pray  to  the  exalted 
Christ  cannot  fairly  be  charged  with  leaving 
Christ  out  of  their  prayers.  They  pray  as 
he  taught  us ;  they  pray  to  God  as  he  revealed 
Him;  they  pray  in  his  name;  and  they  will 
even  say  "for  his  sake,"  whatever  that  may 
mean  in  the  circumstances.  Christian  prayer 
in  a  Christian  land,  offered  by  Christians,  is 
impossible  without  Christ. 

THE     CASE     OF     THE     MODERN     MAN 

This,  then,  is  the  situation.  What  has  the 
typical  modern  to  say  to  it.?  We  suspect  the 
reader  will  not  have  to  go  very  far  to  find 
him.  That  this  modem  is  a  person  of  religious 
propensities  will  not  be  questioned,  for  he  is 
human. 

To  begin  with,  he  feels  no  desire  to  make 
special  thanksgiving  to  a  Jesus  who  lived — as 
he  hears — 1900  years  ago.  "Religion,"  says 
he,  "  is  a  personal  relation  to  God,  and  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  events  and  systems  and  personali- 
ties of  other  days.  Jesus  is  a  definite,  historical 
fact,  the  most  important,  because  the  most  in- 
sistent datum  of  history.  But  my  religion  has 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  to  do  with  data 
of  history.  And  if  historical  science  should 
ever  prove  that  Jesus  never  existed  (which  it 
wiU  not)   I  should  still  cling  to  faith  beyond 


136         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

the  forms  of  faith."  He  would  resent  as  a 
gross  libel  the  attempt  to  dispose  of  him  by 
attaching  to  him  the  name  of  any  one  theolo- 
gian and  leveling  him  to  the  ground  with  an 
ism.  What  he  feels  is  symptomatic  of  today, 
not  just  of  one  particular  school. 

He  sympathizes  with  the  modern  spirit  as 
applied  to  religion.  Therefore  he  wiU  have 
turned  his  back  on  the  whole  transcendental 
business  of  theology — a  transcendent  God 
simply  transcends  his  mind  and  his  active 
interests.  It  will  always  be  passing  strange 
to  him  that  man  should  have  had  so  little  sense 
of  humor  as  to  posit  such  a  transcendent 
God  and  in  the  next  breath  discourse  on  Him 
as  though  He  were  known  in  all  His  length 
and  breadth  and  height.  What  man  can  under- 
stand, plainly,  is  not  transcendent;  and  what 
transcends  man,  just  as  plainly,  will  never  form 
the  subject  of  his  thought.  And  with  all  the 
mystery  that  surrounds  the  matter,  God  is  at 
least  held  to  be  like  us,  in  part.  We  were  made 
in  His  image.  If  we  cannot,  in  part,  under- 
stand Him  we  can  understand  nothing. 

Furthermore,  the  modem  man  no  longer  feels 
himself  to  be  a  miserable  sinner.  In  the  mouth 
of  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  people  who  use 
those  self-deprecatory  words  they  are  a  mean- 
ingless, preposterous  phrase.  He  knows  him- 
self  to   be   imperfect   and   sinful   and   unholy, 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  137 

but  he  is  not  miserable  over  it.  This  is  plain 
fact.  He  tries  to  make  the  best  of  it  in  what 
he  believes  to  be  a  very  good  world  on  the  whole, 
and  he  trusts  God  for  the  rest.  He  under- 
stands the  resentment  of  the  little  girl  who 
protested :  "  I  am  not  a  miserable  sinner.  I 
am  happy,  and  try  to  be  good."  Whether 
this  is  a  symptom  of  joyous  health  or  of  a 
fatal  disease  has  not  been  decided  yet  to  the 
satisfaction  of  everybody.  But  Christianity  has, 
in  practise,  decided  that  a  sinner  need  not  be 
miserable  because  there  is  an  angry  God  to 
haunt  one's  waking  moments.  "For  God  so 
loved  the  world"  that  fear  of  Him  is  a  virtual 
denial  of  His  goodness.  And  "perfect  love  cast- 
eth  out  fear." 

Finally,  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  is,  to  him,  no 
sufficient  reason  why  he  should  adopt  the  custom 
of  addressing  the  Master  in  prayer,  as  we  have 
seen.  In  many  cases  the  prayer  comes  first, 
unpremeditated,  free,  natural,  without  any  an- 
tecedent verifications  or  weighing  of  proba- 
bilities. He  will  pray,  being  first  a  man  and 
secondly  a  modern,  because  he  has  to  pray, 
and  all  questions  about  divinity  or  deity  are 
after  thoughts.  That  a  being  is  immensely 
better,  greater,  wiser,  stronger  than  man,  is, 
of  itself,  no  more  than  a  predisposing  cause, 
certainly  not  a  compelling  reason  why  he  should 
be  worshipped.     This  is  true  though  the  virtues 


138         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

be  multiplied  and  magnified  to  infinity,  for  with 
them  all  God  may  yet  be  no  more  than  a  Nietz- 
schean,  apotheosized  Overman. 

Such  are  some  of  the  characteristic  beliefs 
which  many  men  share  today  unblushingly ;  un- 
blushingly  because  naturally.  Strength  is  in 
their  bones,  and  wisdom  is  in  their  brains,  and 
God  is  in  their  hearts. 

And  still  one  asks:  Has  not  something  gone 
out  of  their  lives  that  might  have  sweetened 
their  repose  and  deepened  their  spiritual  per- 
ceptions? With  all  this  has  not  a  sense  of 
oppression  taken  hold  of  their  souls.? 

Rationalism  is  a  duty.  We  no  longer  sneer 
at  a  faith  that  reasons,  any  more  than  at  a 
reason  that  confesses  to  have  a  faith.  But  does 
this  rationalism  get  at  more  than  half  the  truth? 
What  is  the  whole  duty  of  man?  The  answer 
comes  with  the  reminder  that  every  man  is  an 
incurable  mystic,  bound  by  a  thousand  invisible 
cords  to  the  spirit-world,  immersed  in  a  sea  of 
mystery.  And  here,  who  knows?  Jesus  Christ 
is  yet  to  make  his  finest  conquests. 

Such  are  the  signs  of  the  times.  Guesses 
thicken  the  air.  From  the  gloom  of  the  un- 
known are  emerging  ghosts,  banshees,  devils, 
dual,  triple,  and  multiple  personalities,  until  the 
universe  is  awhir  with  Hfe.  They  appear  to  be 
clothed  with  the  mantle  of  respectability.  The 
Mothers — as  Goethe  called  them — the  elemental 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  139 

forces  of  nature  are  stirring  as  though  pre- 
paring for  a  wondrous  epiphany.  Already 
science  has  seen  fit  to  abandon  its  unbending, 
cavaHer  disdain  of  the  mysteries.  The  jargon 
and  the  quackery  of  the  Cagliostros  and  the 
Blavatskys  of  yesterday  are  in  a  fair  way  to 
retire  before  some  of  the  more  authentic  and 
intelligible  apocalypses.  Thus  far  the  unseen 
universe  had  been  the  limbo  for  gibbering  fools 
and  vile  deceivers  and  visionary  poets :  who  will 
say  that  they  have  exhausted  its  meaning.'' 

And  the  modern  man  stands  undecided,  ex- 
pectant. To  him,  too,  will  come  the  vision,  as 
it  did  in  other  days,  and  then  Jesus,  the  Master 
of  the  spirit,  will  come  into  his  own,  then  men 
shall  not  be  ashamed  to  express  their  trust  in 
the  powers  that  condition  this  universe,  in  the 
"God,"  the  "Goodness,"  the  "Life,"  the  "Love" 
back  of  and  in  all — ^the  something 

'*  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  sun, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  which  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought. 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

THE  CALIi  OF  NATUEE 

We  believe  that  nature  has,  for  such  people, 
living  in  such  a  time  and  having  such  interests, 
a  religious  significance  far  transcending  any- 
thing which  the  old  "natural  religion"  reason- 


140         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

ing  could  yield.  Nature  is  vastly  more  than  a 
magazine  stocked  with  "designs,"  to  supply 
man  with  cogent  arguments  for  the  beneficence 
or  the  power  of  God,  arguments  which  have  been 
thrown  into  the  attic  of  theological  science  to 
make  room  for  the  notion  of  purpose.  Also,  it 
is  more  than  the  "garment  of  God."  Storehouses 
and  garments  may  be  very  convenient,  but  they 
permit  no  vital,  intimate  relationships  with 
thinking  and  loving  and  living  man. 

What  is  called  nature,  the  totality  of  natural 
phenomena,  is,  among  many  other  things,  the 
manifestation  of  life.  Nature  is  alive,  somehow. 
Even  matter — dead  matter,  they  used  to  say — 
metals,  crystals,  worlds,  as  also  the  hypothetical 
molecules,  atoms,  corpuscles,  electrons,  manifest 
energy  or  are  manifest  energy.  And  energy  is — 

But  here  we  are  walking  on  air.  Nature,  too, 
is  part  of  the  great  mystery  in  the  presence  of 
which  the  proudest  intellect  needs  to  cultivate  a 
becoming  modesty.  Science  but  spells  out  the 
letters  in  which  the  riddle  of  the  universe  is 
written;  it  does  not  give  us  its  solution. 

The  desire  to  commune  with  nature,  to  re- 
spond somehow  to  the  spirit  in  and  of  this  uni- 
verse, is  not  only  legitimate,  it  is  inevitable. 
Though  philosophy  may  ignore  this  movement, 
and  the  churches  may  thunder  against  it,  and 
the  physical  sciences  may  ridicule  it,  the  man  we 
have    tried   to    describe   will    still   follow    the 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  141 

promptings  of  his  heart.  The  soul  seeks  and 
finds  its  companion  and  mate.  It  refuses  to  be 
satisfied  with  an  oflScial  declaration,  delivered 
once  for  all,  that  nature  is  godless,  or  dead,  or 
Maya — an  illusion,  and  that  one  needs  to  turn 
from  it  to  gain  peace;  and  it  is  persuaded  that 
a  purely  objective  study  of  an  inanimate  crea- 
tion is  a  sheer  waste  of  time.  The  soul  must  im- 
part itself.  Like  speaks  to  like.  It  listens  for 
a  response.  And  many  among  the  wisest  of 
mankind  have  declared,  on  the  basis  of  their 
own  inner  experience,  that  the  response  has 
come. 

It  would  be  hasty  to  conclude  that  this  whole 
process  is  only  the  projection  into  nature  of 
what  is  in  ourselves,  making  of  ourselves  dupes 
to  believe  what  we  have  invented,  Narcissus  wor- 
shipping his  own  image.  We  feel  that  the  some- 
thing supplied  by  nature  and  inherent  in  it  is 
akin  to,  yet  different  from,  ourselves.  And  no 
sophistication,  no  rationalism  can  convince  the 
average  thinker  that  this  feeling  is  pure  illusion. 
He  will  even  construct  for  himself  a  theory  of 
an  "earth-soul,"  though  he  may  never  have 
heard  of  Fechner,  he  will  people  this  universe 
with  demons  and  angels,  he  will  extend  his  no- 
tion of  God,  just  so  he  may  satisfy  the  longing 
for  his  kind.  When  alone  he  feels  himself  least 
alone.  The  wings  of  the  Presences  keep  up  the 
pulsations  of  nature,  and  there  is  an  instream- 


142         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

ing  of  thought  and  vitality  we  lacked  before. 
The  mystagog  is  in  favor  as  never  before,  and, 
what  is  more,  he  has  vindicated  his  right  to  a 
hearing. 

A  glance  at  the  literature  of  this  new  mysti- 
cism of  nature  will  show  what  a  hold  it  has  taken 
on  the  minds  especially  of  the  younger  thinkers 
of  today.  There  are  voices  not  to  be  despised, 
that  tell  us  that  the  more  of  a  mystic  a  man  is 
the  more  of  a  man  he  is.  Intelligence,  by  itself, 
leads  into  a  blind  alley.  Philosophy  is  a  hodge- 
podge of  contradictions.  Will,  taken  as  the 
great  solvent,  reduces  us  all  to  hopeless  pessi- 
mists. If  you  do  not  feel  it,  you  shall  never 
understand  it! 

No  matter,  then,  that  the  rationalist  smiles 
at  the  word  "mystic."  History  is  on  the  .side 
of  the  visionary.  Where  there  is  no  vision  the 
people  perish.  Religion  is  almost  synonymous 
with  it.  It  is  the  breath  of  life  in  poetry  and 
in  art.  Music,  if  it  is  ever  to  be  more  than  an 
exercise  in  harmonics  or  a  pleasing  exposition 
of  mathematical  formulae,  must  speak  to  the 
soul;  it's  we  musicians  know. 

A  hundred  new  cults,  churches,  lodges, 
leagues  have  got  started.  Much  of  their  hocus- 
pocus  is  a  pitiful  commentary  on  the  intelli- 
gence of  their  members,  so  that  a  man  of  parts 
is  actually  ashamed  to  join  them.  But  they 
stand  as  a  witness  of  one  thing:  that  the  old 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  143 

rationalisms  have  failed  to  satisfy.  And,  to  cap 
the  climax,  reluctant,  proud,  self-sufficient  sci- 
ence is  being  forced  to  make  terms  with  these 
phenomena. 

Maeterlinck's  The  Life  of  Bees  and  its  Eng- 
lish congeners  have  struck  a  vibrant  chord  in 
the  hearts  of  thousands.  Nature  books  are  as 
popular  as  the  latest  fiction.  A  modem  school 
of  nature-poets,  with  the  Austrian  Reiner  Maria 
Rilke  at  their  head,  is  making  all  nature  the  re- 
vealment  of  the  omnipresent  God.  The  Kepler- 
bund  can  announce  accessions  of  over  a  thou- 
sand in  less  than  three  months.  And  its  mem- 
bers are  recruited  not  from  the  masses  who  in- 
dorse every  new  fashion,  but  from  the  men  who 
are  thoroughly  interested  in  the  meanings  of  na- 
ture. They  have  united,  according  to  their  con- 
stitution, under  a  name  which  is  the  symbol  of 
the  true  love  of  science  and  the  deepest  religious 
sentiment.  Johannes  Mueller,  Ralph  W.  Trine, 
Ellen  Key,  Herman — ^to  mention  only  a  few 
representing  the  most  divergent  types  of  reli- 
gious beliefs — have  this  in  common,  that  they 
are  all  trying  to  give  an  answer  to  the  youth 
who  stands  face  to  face  with  nature,  mysteri- 
ous, sphinx-like,  caressing,  insinuating,  and 
who  wants  to  read  her  riddle. 

These  are  the  prophets  of  the  present  genera- 
tion. And  they  will  speak  their  message  even 
to  the  predicating  of  life  and  intelligence  and 


144         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

souls  to  stars  and  plants  and  animals  and  whole 
worlds.  Much  of  it  may  be  but  clever  guessing, 
striking  one  as  grotesque,  but  it  has  the  unde- 
niable merit  of  finding  sympathizers. 

This  tendency  to  make  friends  with  nature, 
and  with  the  whole  universe,  like  a  Christianized 
Thoreau,  is  not  just  a  fad,  least  of  all  is  it  a 
literary  or  esthetic  trick  of  the  trade.  That 
were  too  easy  an  explanation.  There  probably 
never  was  a  soul  that  has  felt  deeply  and  thought 
carefully  that  has  not,  at  some  time,  caught  it- 
self "talking"  to  nature.  And  the  communion 
has  brought  relief.  It  has  satisfied  when  noth- 
ing else  would  satisfy.  It  has  even  been  apothe- 
osized into  a  religion.  Nature  is  "loved,"  and 
"revered,"  and  "worshipped."  One  does  not  have 
to  be  a  Rousseau  or  a  Wordsworth  to  understand 
such  feelings.  And  the  thorough  working  out 
of  the  doctrine  of  divine  immanence,  to  one  who 
is  not  afraid  of  the  old  scarecrow  of  pantheism, 
has  at  least  this  much  to  its  credit,  that  it  has 
supplied  man  with  a  respectable  reason  for  this 
so  persistent  a  penchant. 

Pantheism  has  been  under  the  ban  mainly  be- 
cause it  seemed  to  make  too  serious  inroads  upon 
our  conception  of  personality  as  applied  to  God. 
It  has  thus  had  its  weakness,  as  every  other  con- 
ception is  bound  to  have  when  it  begins  to  make 
exclusive  claims  to  accord  with  truth.  "Person- 
ality" is  only  one  of  many  symbols  that  man  has 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  145 

applied  to  God.  But  it  has  crowded  hard  on 
conceptions  not  included  in  the  term  personality. 
Anything  that  seemed  to  secure  God  as  a  person 
was  more  than  welcome;  everything  that  seemed 
to  endanger  the  person  was  thrice  anathema. 
And  since  the  word  had,  perforce,  to  be  filled 
with  a  human  content,  every  theory  that  did  not 
offer  a  divinity  in  the  likeness  of  a  man  was,  of 
course  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  held  to  be  dan- 
gerous to  faith. 

Modesty  has  not  been  the  most  prominent  vir- 
tue with  many  of  those  who  have  been  loudest 
in  condemning  pantheism.  We  know  but  little 
of  God,  but  the  little  we  do  know  is  a  sufficient 
warrant  for  the  belief  that  the  pantheist  has, 
in  some  way,  got  hold  of  a  truth  which  might 
otherwise  have  been  neglected,  a  truth  which 
contributes  to  the  enrichment  of  the  concept 
God.  Pantheism  as  an  exclusive  form  of  theism 
overshot  the  mark  and  robbed  its  followers  of 
some  of  the  sweetest  consolations  of  religion. 
Love,  devotion,  prayer,  consciousness,  are  con- 
tingent upon  facts  which  it  has  unceremoniously 
ignored. 

But  the  gains  that  were  made  in  this  direction 
have  always  been  at  the  expense  of  the  great- 
ness and  the  super-human  character  of  deity. 

The  historic  puzzle  how  to  combine  the  good 
of  both  sides  without  compounding  with  their 
attendant   evils   will   never   be   solved   by   man. 


146         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

Theology  will  never  get  beyond  a  compromise. 
There  is  no  danger  that  the  human  side  of  God 
be  lost  to  mankind,  seeing  that  that  is  the  only 
side  we  can  ever  know ;  but  there  is  danger  that 
man  proceed  in  his  speculations  on  the  assump- 
tion that  this  human  character,  raised  to  the 
n-th  power  and  sublimated  into  something  su- 
perhuman, accounts  for  the  whole  God.  To  throw 
pantheism  overboard,  bag  and  baggage,  simply 
because  it  involved  the  denial  of  what  is  very 
dear  to  the  heart,  is  hardly  the  fair  way  of 
doing  justice  to  its  positive  contribution  to  the 
knowledge  of  God.  Whether  it  is  a  brave  thing 
to  do  is  also  worth  pondering. 

The  impetus  given  to  modern  thinking  by 
Herder  and  Schleiermacher  and  Goethe  is  enough 
to  show  the  folly  of  such  a  procedure.  And 
the  profound  influence  of  the  writings  of 
Spinoza,  even  today,  though  they  are  a  warn- 
ing that  the  mind,  unaided,  is  incapable  of  solv- 
ing the  logical  contradiction  involved  in  pure 
pantheism,  would  have  to  be  put  down  as  one 
of  the  absurdest  phenomena  of  modern  times — • 
on  the  theory  that  his  speculations  about  the 
"  Universal  Being"  are  unadulterated  nonsense. 

But  restore  God  into  the  universe,  where  the 
Greek  found  Him,  where  the  poet  feels  Him, 
and  where  natural  theology,  grudgingly,  has 
been  allowed  to  discover  Him,  to  show,  mainly, 
how  unsatisfactory  a  revelation  in  and  through 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  147 

nature  can  be  made  as  compared  to  a  revela- 
tion above  and  in  spite  of  nature ;  dare  to  trust 
that  it  is  impossible  to  thin  out  or  dilute  God 
or  that  man  should  be  able  to  attribute  to  Him 
what  is  not  in  Him  and  of  Him  and  look  for 
"  God  in  nature  and  nature  in  God ;"  say  with 
Sir  O.  Lodge  that  the  term  God,  if  it  is  to 
have  any  meaning  at  all,  must  at  least  include 
everything  we  have  so  far  been  able  to  discover 
as  existent  in  the  universe — and  then  Mrs 
Browning's : 

Earth's  cram'd  with  Heaven 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God/' 

becomes  more  than  a  banal,  threadbare  poetic 
conceit,  but  the  sober  proclamation  of  a  joyous 
fact. 

And  then,  too,  you  have  at  least  one  reason 
which  the  modern  man  will  listen  to,  for  the 
worship,  not  only  of  Jesus,  very  God  of  God, 
but  of  every  embodiment  of  God.  If  there 
is  any  revulsion  it  will  have  to  come,  not  be- 
cause of  the  poverty  of  this  conception,  but 
because  of  the  embarrassment  of  riches  it  offers, 
God  is  no  beggar,  that  man  should  exhaust  the 
richness  of  His  being. 

For,  in  the  last  analysis,  it  is  the  God,  where- 
ever  He  is — and,  ex  hypothesis  He  is  every- 
where— that  compels  the  worship.  That  is  true 
of  all  religion,  from  that  of  the  lowest  fetish 
worshipper  to  that  of  the  emancipated  trans- 


148         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

cendentalist.  He  would  be  a  bold  man  who 
should  put  down  the  hundreds  of  apostrophes 
addressed  by  a  Wordsworth  to  the  Powers  of 
the  Air,  the  Sea,  the  Mountain,  the  Grove,  as  so 
much  fantastic  makebelief ,  and  attempt  to  draw 
a  hard  and  fast  line  between  them  and  prayer. 

The  most  certain  of  all  the  facts  ascertain- 
able about  the  universe  is  that  it  is  from  first 
to  last  profoundly  spiritual.  The  life  of  the 
spirit  is  the  fundamental  truth.  Dead  matter, 
the  idola  that  has  bewitched  whole  generations 
of  scientists,  is  nothing  but  a  huge  assumption. 
The  world  is  more  than  a  mechanism. 

It  was  as  early  as  1869  that  Hirn,  the  French 
physicist,  announced  his  three  ultimate  prin- 
ciples: the  atom,  the  force,  the  soul;  the  atom 
acted  upon  by  the  force,  and  the  force  acted 
upon  by  the  soul.  And  more  recently  Mendele- 
jefF,  Russia's  greatest  chemist,  has  written: 
"  The  mark  of  our  modem  scientific  realism  is 
the  recognition  of  three  irreducible  principles, 
matter,  energy,  and  spirit."  This  may  be  bad 
news  to  the  confirmed  monist  of  either  wing, 
bound  to  resolve  the  many  into  the  one,  but  it 
certainly  permits  a  belief  that  the  spiritual  con- 
ception and  interpretation  of  this  universe  is 
perfectly  reasonable,  and,  what  is  final  with 
many  a  man  today,  thoroughly  "scientific." 
Whatever  more  the  world  may  be,  it  is  at  least 
responsive  to  man's  spiritual  cravings  and  akin 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  149 

to  his  higher  self,  otherwise  our  Wordsworths 
are  all  so  many  incarnations  of  Peter  Bell.  And 
the  heart  confirms  the  statement. 

But  how  does  God — the  God  of  ages  past — 
fare  in  this  loosening  of  erstwhile  rigid  ideas.? 
Is  not  a  God  who  is  thus  indissolubly  bound 
up  with  the  universe,  matter,  energy,  and  all, 
dangerously  near  to  extinction.?  That  He  is 
different  from  the  God  as  imagined  by  past 
generations  is  true,  and  that  is  no  unmitigated 
loss.  Furthermore,  He  is,  beyond  a  doubt,  dif- 
ferent from  the  imaginings  of  the  present.  No 
mind  hath  read  the  secret  thoughts  of  God,  least 
of  all  he  who  pretends  to  know  what  God  is 
and  what  He  cannot  be.  All  our  ideas  are  but 
approximations.  But  does  the  present  emphasis 
on  a  sympathizing,  self -imparting,  all-embrac- 
ing being,  inextricably  bound  up  with  a  blunder- 
ing humanity  and  a  world  full  of  contradictions, 
really  offer  sufficient  satisfaction  to  guarantee 
its  general  truthfulness.?  For,  needless  to  say, 
a  false  god  will  not,  in  the  long  run,  satisfy 
the  heart  of  man. 

Now  to  some  the  notion  of  a  God  who  is 
subject  to  all  the  vicissitudes  of  this  varying 
universe  is  a  gigantic  absurdity.  A  sympathiz- 
ing, i.e.  a  suffering  God,  a  God  who  needs 
matter  and  force  to  express  himself,  who  grows 
with  man,  whose  goodness  is  not  just  a  babe's 
unearned  innocence,  but  a  positive  achievement. 


150         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

who  feels  the  deprivations  of  his  children,  who 
can  live  in  their  Hfe  and  die  in  their  death — 
imagine,  if  possible,  a  dead  God ! — :  to  call  such 
ideas  confusing  would  be  too  mild ;  many  would 
call  them  nothing  but  the  starkest  nonsense. 

And  yet  even  a  "suffering"  God  hints  at  a 
fact  in  the  cosmic  process ;  historic  Christianity, 
for  one  thing,  is  unthinkable  without  it.  In 
some  way  the  logical  contradiction  has  got  it- 
self metamorphosed  into  a  mere  paradox  that 
has  captivated  the  mind.  It  would  be  doing 
the  fathers  of  the  church  little  honor  to  suppose 
that  they  had  rationaHzed  over  this  matter,  but 
they  felt  certain  that  He  had  borne  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows.  The  common  man 
to  whom  the  Athanasian  creed  is  more  a  jumble 
of  incompatibilities  than  a  sacred  symbol,  thanks 
to  his  training  of  the  sense  of  reality,  may  re- 
pudiate the  theology.  But  he  cannot  repudiate 
the  hunger  of  his  soul.  Surely,  the  venerable 
fathers  were  above  trying  to  mystify  mankind 
with  a  huge,  preposterous  trick;  they  meant 
to  express  what  may  be  inexpressible,  but  is 
still  a  truth,  namely,  that  God  entered  into 
Jesus  (the  modern  creed-maker  might  prefer 
to  say,  as  into  all  men  so  also  into  Jesus)  and, 
for  humanity,  is  practically  nonexistent  except 
in  so  far  as  He  does  thus  enter  into  and  reveal 
himself  in  a  proper  medium  which  we  can  under- 
stand. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  151 

Music  is,  but  not  without  the  ear;  light  is, 
but  not  without  the  eye;  love  is,  but  not  with- 
out the  heart;  God  is,  but  not  without  His 
universe.  And  in  this  universe — or  multiverse 
— ^humanity  represents  the  goal.  And  in  this 
humanity  Jesus  of  Nazareth  represents  the  ideal. 

Whether  immanence  or  transcendence  is  held 
to  carry  the  larger  portion  of  the  truth  will 
depend  almost  wholly  upon  one's  training  and 
personal  prejudices;  to  many  it  will  ever  be 
a  question  whether  it  is  really  worth  while  to 
busy  one's  self  with  the  riddle  and  whether  the 
idea  really  solves  any  practical  questions. 
Truly,  he  who  wants  but  three  meals  a  day 
and  peace  at  any  price  and  is  satisfied  to  travel 
the  safe  road  worn  smooth  and  hard  by  the 
countless  feet  of  the  generations  that  asked 
no  questions  for  conscience's  sake,  just  so  he 
get  his  soul  saved,  will  thereby  escape  some 
very  trying  difficulties. 

What,  for  instance,  becomes  of  the  problem 
of  evil?  How  often  that  challenge  has  been 
supposed  to  settle  all  debate!  Evil — a  part 
of  God!  There  is  nothing  further  to  be  said. 
Anathema  sit ! 

Those  who  live  in  glass  houses  are  not  gener- 
ally supposed  to  throw  stones.  To  be  ready 
with  the  taunt  that  immanence  does  not  explain 
evil  is  hardly  a  gracious  attitude  especially 
when    assumed    by  those  whose    theology    has 


152         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

simply  capitulated  before  this  hete  noire  as  a 
**mystery,"  or  fallen  back  on  an  anti-god,  more 
or  less  devilish,  much  as  if  a  pestilence  were 
explained  by  a  comet.  The  pot,  besides,  should 
not  call  the  kettle  black,  especially  in  the  theolo- 
gical world.  To  the  challenge,  "What  do  you 
do  with  the  problem  of  evil.?"  the  believer  in 
immanence  may  quietly  say,  "  I  leave  it  exactly 
where  you  have  left  it.  If  the  non-solution 
of  this  ancient  puzzle  is  a  valid  objection  to 
my  views,  it  is  no  less  a  valid  objection  to 
your  views ;  for,  confessedly,  you  have  notori- 
ously failed  to  get  it  abolished  or  even  explained, 
and  so  we  are  companions  in  ignorance  and  in 
misery.  Let  us  stop  throwing  stones  and  calling 
names,  and  be  thankful  for  the  little  light  that 
shines  into  our  lives !" 

Plainly,  the  you're-another  argument  has  no 
scientific  or  philosophical  value;  but  it  has  a 
practical  value  if  it  only  reminds  the  human 
understanding  of  its  limitations.  "Let  know- 
ledge grow  from  more  to  more,  but  more  of 
reverence  in  us  dwell." 

The  argument  that  may  be  drawn  from  nature 
in  the  matter  of  goodness  or  evil  is,  at  best, 
a  two-edged  sword.  It  was  early  seen  that  the 
proving  of  a  beneficent  God  or  a  beauty-loving 
God  from  a  good  or  a  beautiful  world  was  a 
sure  way  of  getting  into  a  most  embarrassing 
situation.     It  was  worth  no  more  than  the  ana- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  153 

logous  proving  of  a  devil  or  some  such  male- 
ficent being  from  the  world's  evil,  though  it 
were  defined  as  only  the  absence  of  good,  or 
the  relatively  good  compared  to  the  relatively 
best.  For  to  talk  of  a  permissive  God  is  little 
better  than  a  quibble,  and  besides,  leaves  the 
difficulty  exactly  where  it  was  before.  Mankind 
owes  much  to  the  teleological  argument — among 
other  things  the  wholesale  fitting  of  facts  to 
theories.  That  God,  providentially,  supplied 
mankind  with  cork  trees  in  Spain  to  enable  us 
to  make  stoppers  for  bottles — to  use  the  classic 
illustration — might  pass  muster;  but  when  said 
bottles  were  filled  with  disease-producing 
whiskies  the  beneficence  had  to  abdicate.  Natur- 
ally such  a  flexible  theory  could  not  long  satisfy 
the  thinker.  He  was  led  to  wonder  what  kind 
of  a  teleology  the  drunkard  who  emptied  the 
bottle  might  construct.  Or,  eliminating  the  dis- 
turbing factor  of  freedom,  he  asked  himself 
what  kind  of  an  appeal  this  teleology  would 
make  to  the  luckless  fish  that  dangles  from  the 
hook  of  the  theological  hunter,  especially  as 
regards  the  special  creation  of  this  particular 
fisherman  and  that  devilish  hook  and  line  which 
prove  his  speedy  ruination  .^^  Would  the  fish 
reflect  on  how  beneficent  a  scheme  it  is  to  be 
skinned  and  absorbed  by  the  King  of  Creation  .f* 
Teleology,  it  began  to  appear,  rested  on  too 
shifting  a  basis  to  be  of  much  use  for  apolo- 
getic purposes. 


154         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

This  was  seen  even  by  so  devout  a  soul  as 
Pascal,  who  begins  his  well-known  thoughts  on 
the  existence  of  God  with  a  summary  rejection 
of  all  proofs  drawn  from  nature.  "  I  admire," 
wrote  he,  "  the  boldness  with  which  these  persons 
undertake  to  speak  of  God,  in  addressing  their 
discourses  to  the  ungodly.  Their  first  chapter 
is  devoted  to  proving  the  existence  of  Deity  by 
the  works  of  nature."  He  did  not,  it  is  true, 
reject  these  socalled  proofs  on  purely  intellect- 
ual grounds  so  much  as  for  practical  reasons, 
Scripture  with  its  heavens  declaring  the  glory 
of  God  etc.,  acting  as  a  check  for  him.  But 
his  own  experience  was  enough  to  persuade  him 
that  such  proofs  gave  the  Christian  but  a 
poor  support  and  that  nothing  was  more  cal- 
culated to  bring  contempt  upon  it.  "  It  is  a 
mark  of  feebleness  to  prove  God  from  nature." 
The  splendid  unconsciousness  of  the  misery  of 
this  world  which  makes  Bossuet's  rhetoric  so 
serene  and  majestic,  prophecy ing  smooth  things, 
is  at  a  world's  remove  from  the  agonizing,  dis- 
traught temper  of  Pascal  who  challenges  heaven 
to  explain  and  justify  the  contradictions  of 
nature. 

Pascal  and  Bossuet  represent  the  two  types 
of  the  mind  which  looks  out  upon  the  world. 
Four  eyes  see  more  than  two.  And  the  world 
is  not  yet  exhausted. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  156 

WHAT   IMMANENCE    CONTRIBUTES    TO    WORSHIP 

It  is  evident  that  immanence,  the  modem  word 
to  conjure  with,  fails  to  dispose  of  many  of  the 
exasperating  riddles  which  the  past  has  be- 
queathed to  the  present.  It  is  not  the  great 
cure-all  and  solve-all  in  the  sickly  and  shadowy 
world  of  doubt.  It  fails  us  when  we  apply 
it  to  some  of  the  personal  interests  of  man- 
kind. With  certain  reservations  we  may  say 
of  it  what  Froude  said  about  the  pantheistic 
system  of  Spinoza :  that  the  spiritual  life  which 
alone  gives  meaning  to  humanity  glides  away 
before  the  dissecting  knife  and  leaves  it  but  a 
corpse  to  work  upon.  But  this  is  true  of  every 
intellectual  attempt  to   grasp  being. 

**  Thought  is  deeper  than  all  speech. 
Feeling  deeper  than  all  thought; 

Souls  to  souls  can  never  teach 

What  unto  themselves  was  taught. 

We  are  spirits  clad  in  veils; 

Man  by  man  was  never  seen; 
All  our  deep  communing  fails 

To  remove  the  shadowy  screen. 

Heart  to  heart  was  never  known. 

Mind  with  mind  did  never  meet; 
We  are  columns  left  alone 
As  a  temple  once  complete. '  * 

Christopher  P.  Cranch. 
One  solid  contribution  to  the  subject  of  chris- 
tology   can  be  put  down  to   its  credit.     The 
idea  of  an  immanent  God  has  opened  to  thou- 


166         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

sands,  and  will  open  to  many  more  as  soon  as 
its  implications  are  realized,  the  only  avenue 
of  approach  in  sight  to  God  in  Jesus  Christ, 
the  savior  and  helper  of  men. 

The  old  theological  reasoning  had,  with  large 
numbers,  had  its  day.  They  had  got  past  the 
stage  of  the  "  Jesus  cult."  This  stage  had 
satisfied  the  heart  but  not  the  intelligence.  The 
next  stage  was  characterized  by  a  supreme  con- 
tempt for  all  saint-worship,  mariolatry,  relic- 
veneration,  and  the  like.  Prayers  to  Jesus  were 
here  put  into  the  same  category.  It  now  be- 
came a  settled  conviction  that  there  is  but  one 
God,  who  would  give  His  glory  to  none  other. 
If  God  was  not  jealous  His  worshippers  would 
be  jealous  for  Him  with  a  burning  jealousy. 
This  satisfied  the  mind  that  craved  for  unity, 
but  not  the  heart  that  wanted  sympathy.  The 
third  stage  brought  the  solving  word.  Men 
will  worship  God,  nothing  but  God,  wherever 
He  is.  And  where  is  He?  He  is  everywhere. 
He  is  in  Jesus.  God  was  and  is  in  Christ,  re- 
conciling the  world  to  Himself.  Let  it  be  said 
once  more,  it  is  the  God,  in  the  last  analysis, 
that  alone  can  compel  worship;  whether  He 
comes  to  man  in  human  form,  or  on  the  wings 
of  the  whirlwind,  or  in  the  still  small  voice  of 
conscience,  makes  little  difference.  The  synthe- 
sis was  complete:  heart  and  head  are  at  peace 
with  one  another.     Those  who  have  never  been 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  157 

forced  to  fight  the  matter  out  to  a  finish  will 
hardly  appreciate  the  relief  that  the  gospel  of 
the  indwelling  spirit  of  God  has  brought  to  man. 

There  are,  indeed,  many  who  have  never  felt 
the  difficulty  which  some  of  the  popular  elements 
of  Christian  worship  present  to  a  mind  that  is 
so  constituted  as  to  be  forced  to  invade  even 
the  holy  of  holies  and  analyze  the  sacred 
feelings  of  prayer.  The  great  majority  of 
Christians  would  probably  deny,  offhand,  that 
their  homage  to  the  exalted  Christ  involved  the 
least  usurpation  of  God's  supreme  rights.  The 
problem  does  not  exist  for  them.  And  what- 
ever the  solution  is  which  in  the  end  will  be 
most  profitable,  it  will  have  to  come  from  other 
sources.  An  ounce  of  experience  is,  in  such 
things,  worth  more  than  a  ton  of  speculation. 

What  suggestions  have  come  from  that 
quarter  have  too  often  been  colored  with  the 
wellnigh  offensive  tendency  to  find  in  all  nega- 
tive results  the  expression  of  a  willful  and  blind 
skepticism.  Sympathy  has  never  distinguished 
those  who  have  taken  it  upon  themselves  to  run 
down  suspicious  innovations.  Consequently  the 
first  alarm  that  was  sounded — ^the  echoes  are  still 
reverberating  in  the  woods — was  to  save  the 
inherited  christology.  The  theology  could  go 
begging.  Philosophy  was  ruled  out  of  court. 
Science  was  balked.  A  vast  array  of  ecclesi- 
astical scare-crows  fluttered  in  the  breeze  to  keep 


158         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

the  enemy  from  the  sacred  precincts  of  Chris- 
tian prayer.  It  was  "proved"  (probably  with 
some  quotations  from  the  fourth  gospel)  that  it 
was  absurd  to  have  any  scruples  and  that  only 
hypercriticism  would  ever  have  thought  of  mud- 
dying the  clear  waters  of  the  received  faith. 

It  cannot  be  said,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  at 
popularizing  the  modern  results  of  biblical 
scholarship,  that  the  popular  trend  is  in  the 
direction  of  a  careful  study  of  the  moot  questions 
of  criticism.  The  average  Christian  is  like  the 
faithful  son  of  the  Catholic  church — he  believes 
what  the  church  believes,  though  it  would  puzzle 
him  sorely  sometimes  to  tell  what  that  belief 
might  be.  If  correct  belief  or  opinion — "ortho- 
doxy"— were  the  condition  of  salvation  there 
would  have  to  be  a  new  adjustment  of  values 
which  would  play  havoc  with  many  a  church — 
for  they  cannot  all  be  correct! 

With  the  critical  methods  we  have  nothing 
to  do  at  present;  as  for  the  critical  temper, 
that  can  be  antidoted  no  more  than  an  inborn 
aptitude  for  learning  mathematics  or  languages. 
One  man  dislikes  music,  a  second  has  red  hair, 
a  third,  forsooth,  is  critical:  such  idiosyncracies 
are  not  to  be  changed  or  deplored.  They  must 
be  accepted.  It  is  the  results — not  unmarred 
by  uncertainty  and  rashness  and  quite  orthodox- 
like  dogmatism — that  alone  concern  us  here. 

These  results  can  be  described  with  approxi- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  159 

mate  correctness  in  the  simple  statements  that 
our  speculations  concerning  Jesus  Christ  have 
had  to  take  their  place  in  the  natural  order  of 
modern  thinking,  that  a  definite  line  has  been 
drawn  between  the  facts  of  his  life  and  the 
facts  of  faith,  and  that,  if  Christian  worship 
is  to  be  justified  at  all,  it  must  be  justified  in 
a  way  that  takes  account  of  the  new  vision  of 
God  which  many  thinking,  spiritually  minded 
men,  not  scientists  by  profession,  have  declared 
has  come  to  man. 

Such  men  are  among  the  most  reverent  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus,  and  they  deny  that  the  lily 
of  the  valley  needs  any  gilding  to  be  made 
beautiful,  or  that  an  aureole  around  the  Lord's 
head  adds  anything  to  his  spiritual  dignity. 
They  prefer  the  real  Jesus,  so  far  as  he  can 
be  recovered,  walking  in  the  midst  of  men  as 
a  divine  guide  to  the  Father,  to  a  byzantine 
fresco  hung  up  in  the  vaulted  arches  of  this 
earth's  cathedral,  darkened  with  the  smoke  of 
incense  and  incrusted  with  the  manifold  layers 
of  color  which  pious  souls  have  added  to  en- 
hance his  unearthly  beauty. 

And  such  men  pray.  But  the  chances  are 
that  when  they  pray  they  will  only  rarely  be 
drawn  to  commune  with  an  exalted  Jesus  who 
acts  as  a  substitute  for  God,  or  an  interlocuter 
and  mediator  warding  off  the  darts  of  wrath. 
They  will  pray  to  God  directly  and  not   ask 


160         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

anybody,  "  Or  a  pro  nobis  ^  Their  heavenly 
Father  is  near  enough  to  hear  them,  and  good 
enough  to  answer,  if  that  be  wise,  without  the 
intervention  of  a  third  person  who  has  a  kinder 
heart  or  a  deeper  sympathy  or  a  louder  voice 
or  a  greater  influence  to  bring  worshipper  and 
worshipped  together. 

They  will  be  careful  not  to  give  room  to  the 
thought  that  there  is  a  special  advantage  in 
shifting  the  direction  of  prayer.  And  if  all 
this  seems  too  revolutionary — religion  is  the 
most  conservative  force  on  earth! — and  if  the 
heart  demands  a  face-to-face  relation  with  Jesus 
as  the  best  revelation  of  God  humanity  knows 
of,  they  will,  to  say  the  least,  refrain  from  any 
petitions  which  degenerate  into  such  sentiments 
as:  "When  the  full  light  of  heavenly  day — 
Reveals  my  sin  of  dread  array.  Say  thou  hast 
washed  them  all  away, — O  say,  thou  plead'st 
for  me."  Whether  such  a  praying  relationship 
between  them  and  Jesus  involves,  necessarily, 
a  similar  relationship  to  Mary,  the  dead,  and 
all  other  souls  here  and  beyond,  will  have  to  be 
decided  by  the  individual  worshipper. 

One  cannot  too  often  insist  that  this  is  done 
to  glorify  God  and  to  honor  His  servants.  The 
present  day  Christian  respectfully  demurs  to 
the  gratuitous  assumption  that  his  attitude 
implies  any  disloyalty  to  the  person  of  Jesus. 
A  single  glance  at  the  pages  of  church  history 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  161 

will  convince  one  that  the  monopoly  of  such  a 
loyalty  and  of  the  desire  to  follow  and  to  obey 
Jesus  is  not  held  by  those  who  sing  the  Coro- 
nation Hymn  with  the  old-time  fervor  and  with 
its  old-time  meaning.  There  is  a  growing 
brotherhood  in  the  churches,  with  a  spiritual 
bond,  recruited  from  the  various  denominations, 
and  vitalized  by  the  desire  to  establish  the  king- 
dom of  love,  though  the  theological  heavens 
fall.  Its  members  speak  the  same  language — 
the  language  of  the  heart.  The  life  of  the 
spirit  is  of  more  importance  to  them  than  the 
most  perfect  intellectual  assents  and  agreements. 
Sometimes  they  are  charged  with  taking  liber- 
ties with  the  inherited  language  of  Christianity. 
They  use  the  old  words  but  with  a  new  mean- 
ing, a  most  prolific  source  of  misunderstand- 
ing. This  does  not  appear  honest  to  those  who 
believe  that  the  meanings  of  words  are  unalter- 
ably fixed.  This  is  unfortunate,  but  inevitable. 
Mankind  today  will  not  do,  though  it  be  con- 
strued into  a  sign  of  insincerity,  what  mankind 
has  never  done:  invent  new  terms  when  old  ones 
serve  just  as  well.  The  terms  God  and  salva- 
tion have  never  been  yoked  to  fixed,  definite, 
universally  accepted  ideas.  Anyone  who  has  his 
doubts  need  only  ask  the  first  six  men  he  meets 
for  a  definition  of  religion,  and  analyse  the 
results.  The  privilege  which  Jesus  and  Paul 
enjoyed,  the  compulsion  that  was  upon  them, 


162         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

thus  to  adapt  the  old  word  to  the  new  life,  is 
an  integral  part  of  man's  intellectual  being.  No 
man  can  escape  this  necessity,  not  even  those 
who  resent  the  ensuing  confusion. 

Only,  the  hand  of  nature  must  not  be  forced. 
It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  instinct 
of  the  church  was  essentially  correct  when  it  op- 
posed those  who  went  too  fast  in  applying  to 
Jesus  Christ  and  his  world  the  new  world  con- 
ceptions that  were  bound  to  arise.  But  these 
things  had  to  come.  They  grew  out  of  the 
memory  of  this  wonderful  personality. 

The  human  heart  will,  in  the  end,  be  true  to 
its  ideals.  The  ideal  in  religion  was  expressed 
by  none  better  than  by  Jesus.  His  influence 
was  the  one  essential  thing.  The  Christian 
church  would  never  have  been  without  Paul, 
but  Paul  would  never  have  been  without  Jesus. 
All  our  speculations  are  based  on  the  life.  The 
life's  the  thing — the  explanations,  the  guesses, 
the  creeds  and  fine  spun  theories  all  point  back 
to  that  Galilean  appearance  which  gave  history 
a  new  start.  God  was  in  Christ  and  we  beheld 
his  glory,  the  glory  of  the  only  begotten  Son 
of  God,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  The  hopes 
of  the  ages  centered  in  him;  we  thought  that 
it  was  he  who  would  redeem  Israel.  The  per- 
sonality had  drawn  us  nearer  to  God,  just  as  the 
fourth  gospel  anticipated. 

It  was  no  part  of  the  original  gospel  as  pro- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  163 

claimed  by  him  that  one  should  have  to  take  a 
definite  stand  towards  him,  except  in  so  far 
as  he  stood  for  the  messenger  of  God;  but  the 
message  and  the  messenger  were  so  intimately 
related  that  he  himself  soon  became  the  touch- 
stone of  religion.  Not  what  he  said  about 
God,  but  what  he  was  through  God,  has  become 
the  criterion  for  those  who  have  learned  of  him. 

This  opened  the  flood-gates  of  speculation 
and  almost  swamped  the  message  the  recovery 
of  which  has  been  the  task  of  modern  criticism. 

And  now  that  we  are  beginning  to  feel  solid 
ground  under  our  feet  once  more  and  can  ascer- 
tain, within  reasonable  limits,  what  his  business 
was  and  what  he  wanted  to  say  we  are  willing 
to  indorse  the  report,  never  man  spoke  as  he 
spoke. 

And  this  admission,  when  it  comes  from  the 
camp  of  comparative  religion,  of  the  religions- 
geschichtliche  wing,  carries  somewhat  more 
weight  than  do  the  foregone  conclusions  of  the 
schools  that  made  it  their  business,  by  hook  or 
by  crook,  to  prove  the  Christ  from  above. 

The  gospel  as  proclaimed  by  Jesus  is  still 
the  standard  according  to  which  souls  are  being 
judged,  and  since  no  one  could  apply  this 
standard  as  well  as  he  it  was  inevitable  that 
our  weal  or  our  woe  should  be  decided  by  our 
attitude  towards  his  person. 

To  say  that  the    worship    of    such  a  one  is 


164         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

a  superstition  does  not  help  to  explain  the 
power  he  has  over  mankind.  "Who  say  ye 
that  I  am?"  is  still  the  test  question.  And 
the  "ye"  are  not  Paul  and  John,  nor  Stalker 
and  Holtzmann  and  Sabatier,  not  even  Matthew 
and  Mark  and  Luke,  but  the  individual  Chris- 
tians. Peter's  testimony  means  less  to  the 
modern  man,  be  he  scholar,  or  artist,  or  artisan, 
than  the  personal  verification  of  that  power 
in  God's  messiah.  We  have  believed  and  know 
that  he  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God. 

The  modern  is  heartily  tired — some  of  our 
theologians  have  not  discovered  it  yet! — of  the 
fine  distinctions  in  the  Godhead,  of  the  antithe- 
sis between  divinity  and  humanity,  between  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural.  The  fiction  of 
the  universal  man,  which  has  not  yet  been  ban- 
ished from  respectable  society,  affects  him  as 
would  a  universal  star,  or  animal,  or  plant.  He 
who  has  once  thought  himself  into  the  present, 
real  throbbing  world  with  its  mysterious,  illimit- 
able God,  so  great  and  yet  so  near, — closer  than 
breathing  and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet,  the 
poet  says — who  has  outlived  the  stage  where 
it  was  natural  to  imagine  a  God  stepping  out 
of  heaven  into  a  lesser  earth,  who  hesitates  to 
assert,  'Here  matter  ends  and  mind  begins,'  who 
believes  all  nature  miraculous,  and  who  feels 
that  a  humanized  God  is  as  reasonable  as  a  dei- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  165 

fied  man  (both  being  mysteries)  will  refuse,  cat- 
egorically, to  spend  any  time  in  constructing 
doctrines  about  the  nature  of  Jesus. 

Something  survived  the  death  of  Jesus.  The 
resurrection  stories  are  not  needed  to  prove  that, 
in  fact,  do  not  prove  that.  But  the  history  of 
1900  years  supplies  a  proof  which  no  sensational 
discovery  of  science  or  radical  result  of  criticism 
will  ever  weaken.  The  cross  was  a  blank  denial 
of  many  claims  and  cancelled  many  hopes ;  but 
it  also  shows  that  the  little  we  know  of  his  life, 
the  little  that  was  expressed  in  his  life  was  not 
the  measure  of  Jesus'  greatness. 

History  does  not  say  all,  though  it  says  much. 
The  Christian  consciousness  has  not  abdicated 
at  the  bar  of  modern  criticism.  And  while  it 
should  be  cheerfully  admitted  that  this  con- 
sciousness has  nothing  to  do  with  the  proofs 
of  historical  facts,  and  that  the  historical  method 
alone  is  competent  to  pass  on  the  truth 
of  such  facts,  the  inner  light  will  always  help 
to  determine  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  facts 
so  ascertained. 

That  is  the  reason  why  the  fourth  gospel, 
with  all  its  guess-work  and  its  theology,  is 
still  accepted  as  essentially  true  to  life.  If  it 
does  not  present  many  indubitable  facts,  it  at 
least  presents  the  true  spirit. 

WHAT   JESUS  IS   TO   US   TODAY 

The  Kalthoif -Drews  answer,  the  socialist  an- 


166         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

swer,  the  therapeutic  answer  to  the  clamoring 
of  the  heart  for  a  savior  leave  a  void  which  is 
the  best  proof  that  they  have  failed  to  hit  upon 
the  truth. 

Jesus  is  the  inspiration  of  the  modem  world. 
The  comparisons  with  Buddha  and  other  in- 
spirers  of  various  ages  and  peoples  will  never 
satisfy  the  interested  parties  on  either  side.  It 
is  perfectly  proper  and  rather  profitable  to 
compare  the  genius  of  Christianity  and  that  of 
Buddhism,  for  here  we  have  authentic  facts, 
spread  over  many  years,  to  correct  any  too 
exuberant  bias  and  to  hold  prejudice  down  to 
reality.  But  as  for  the  personalities  that  stand 
back  of  these  two  religions,  both  of  them  are 
so  enshrouded  in  mystery  that  any  parallel  is 
sure  to  beg  the  question  of  superiority  to  begin 
with,  and  will  probably  break  down  through 
lack  of  sympathy.  An  educated  mussulman 
will  prove  Islam  the  religion  of  common  sense; 
a  Swami  Vivekananda  is  sure  that  Vedanta  is 
the  key  to  the  truth;  and  tomorrow's  cult  will 
dethrone  all  the  gods  of  the  pantheon  and  put 
in  their  place  a  new  divinity,  the  very  phoenix 
of  goodness.  But  this  subjectivity  can  be  at 
least  regulated,  if  not  wholly  removed,  in  the 
study  of  what  the  various  religions  have  done 
for  humanity. 

This  study  is  not  altogether  agreeable,  for 
to  raise  one  hero  in  the  rank  means,  with  many. 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  167 

the  relative  degradation  of  all  others,  and  it  is 
not  made  easier  by  the  bald  charge,  made  on 
the  basis  of  what  is  worst  in  the  heart  of  man, 
that  religion  is  a  bar  to  all  true  progress.  The 
Sanballets  are  not  all  dead  yet.  That  sort  of 
thing  generally  winds  up  with  the  peurile  ap- 
peal to  the  world  to  have  done  with  the  old 
gods  and  to  start  a  new  and  only  true  ism. 
A  fatality  that  dogs  these  new  messiahs  is  their 
unconscionable  lack  of  humor. 

Now,  much  as  it  may  go  against  the  grain 
of  some,  the  influence  of  Jesus  in  the  western 
world  is  absolutely  unescapable.  This  is  not 
a  matter  of  choice.  The  deliberately  anti-chris- 
tian  man  of  the  world  has  to  submit  to  it.  What- 
ever our  civilization  is,  for  good  or  for 
bad,  it  would  not  be  what  it  is  if  1900  years 
ago  Jesus  had  not  been  born  in  an  obscure 
village  in  Palestine.  No  amount  of  sophistica- 
tion can  get  around  that.  In  a  spirit  of  para- 
doxical bravado  one  may,  for  a  change,  speak 
of  the  influence  of  civilization  on  Christianity; 
in  general  this  would  be  putting  the  cart  before 
the  horse. 

The  facts  of  Christian  experience,  the  events 
of  many  centuries  show  the  Christ  to  be  alive 
forevermore.  In  his  own  field  he  admits  no 
rivals.  In  other  fields  others  may  be  supreme. 
In  what  is  called  the  modem  world  Christ  is 
the  one  deciding  factor.     There  is  none  more 


168         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

important.  "  The  atmosphere  of  Europe  has 
been  saturated  for  some  fifteen  centuries  with 
Christian  principles  and  however  far  the  re- 
bellion against  the  Church  may  have  spread, 
it  may  still  be  called  the  Moral  University  of 
the  world, — not  merely  the  greatest,  but  the 
only  great  School  of  Virtue  existing.  While 
this  is  so  it  is  idle  for  any  virtue  that  springs 
up  in  its  neighborhood  to  claim  to  be  indepen- 
dent of  it.  Christian  influences  are  in  the  air; 
our  very  conception  of  virtue  is  Christian;  the 
tone,  the  habits  of  sentiment  and  language — in 
short,  all  the  associations  of  virtue — have  been 
furnished  by  the  discipline  of  the  Christian 
Church."  (Ecce  Homo.)  And  the  influence  of 
the  church  for  good  was  dependent  upon  the 
personality  of  her  Lord. 

But  this  falls  far  short  of  doing  justice  to 
the  situation.  The  fact  of  this  influence  being 
granted,  what  is  it  that  thus  secured  and  secures 
the  place  of  Jesus  in  modern  life? 

And  here  the  so-called  liberal  Christian  joins 
with  the  traditional  theology  in  announcing  his 
belief  that  Jesus  is,  in  very  fact,  the  savior 
of  our  lives.  That  this  savior  should  have 
presented  himself  under  diff^erent  aspects  to  dif- 
ferent schools  in  diff'erent  ages,  need  disturb 
no  one.  Many  minds,  many  ideas.  That  the 
accepted  meaning  was  not  always  the  correct 
meaning,   the   history   of   doctrine    abundantly 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  169 

shows.  Orthodoxy  is  no  guarantee  of  correct- 
ness; its  theology  was  not  even  certain  to  be 
biblical,  which,  on  the  assumption  of  its  cham- 
pions, was  enough  to  condemn  it. 

One  chapter,  at  least,  is  closed.  The  modem 
world  can  get  no  help  out  of  any  theory  of 
makebelief;  imputation,  redemption,  propitia- 
tion, with  their  suggestion  of  subterfuge,  are 
hardly  compatible  with  the  dignity  of  Deity. 
The  saviorship  of  Jesus  no  longer  implies  the 
juridical  fiction  of  a  justification,  conceived  in 
legal  or  sacrificial  terms.  Paul  and  the  Old 
Testament  did  not  delimit  the  plan  of  salvation. 
The  Jesus-paid-it-all,  I-lay-my-sins-on-Jesus 
sentiment,  the  language  of  a  lawyer  or  of  a 
priest,  utterly  fails  to  interest.  We  think  less 
of  propitiation  than  of  the  power  we  lack  to 
avoid  sin.  We  still  hear  the  cry  "  Wretched 
man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death?"  But  the  answer  is  sure 
to  come :  "  I  thank  God — ^through  Jesus  Christ" 
■ — ^who  is  the  deliverer;  not  a  Hercules  in  fury, 
or  a  Prometheus  unbound,  not  a  God  out  of  the 
machine  to  readjust  the  universe  and  "save 
the  world,"  but  a  savior  who  came  to  show  us 
the  way  to  God  and  to  show  us  how  that  way 
might  be  travelled.  Dale  states  the  case  tersely 
when  he  says  (Atonement,  p.  336)  that  what- 
ever we  may  say  about  the  remission  of  sins, 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  remission  of  sins  in^ 


170         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

eludes  the  blessings  which  are  necessary  to  com- 
plete our  salvation. 

It  was  perfectly  natural  for  Paul  to  make 
so  much  of  justification;  it  is  no  less  natural 
that  the  emphasis  should  have  shifted  to  the 
new  life  which  Jesus  made  possible  for  us  to- 
day. So  the  death  of  the  Savior,  as  the  one 
great  factor  in  the  work  of  "redemption,"  lost 
some  of  its  meaning  to  the  modem  man;  he 
refuses  to  separate  it — as  Paul  practically 
did — from  the  totality  of  the  life.  The  power 
of  the  blood,  with  all  its  possibilities  for  fetish- 
worship  and  Christianized  magic,  at  the  best, 
was  never  an  unobjectionable  concept. 

But  to  stop  here  were  to  leave  a  wrong  impres- 
sion. 

All  Christians  believe  in  the  forgiveness  of 
sins.  They  also  believe  in  the  life  everlast- 
ing— and  that  is,  after  all,  the  issue  towards 
which  all  things  converge,  the  one  positive 
towards  which  all  negatives  tend.  In  Jesus  the 
possibilities  of  that  life  were  manifested  to  the 
world.  The  death  of  the  Nazarene  was  a  sign 
of  how  seriously  he  took  his  mission  of  estab- 
lishing this  new  regime  in  the  hearts  of  his 
friends. 

Historically,  the  whole  theology  of  the  church 
is  founded  in  the  meaning  of  this  one  episode — 
the  death  on  the  cross.  As  has  since  happened 
to  other  offensive  things   in  Christendom,  the 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  171 

gibbet's  offense  was  turned  into  a  glorious  apol- 
ogy. It  is  the  guarantee  of  the  goodness  of 
God.  Practically,  the  church  is  finding  herself 
at  last — it  was  high  time! — face  to  face  with 
the  very  life,  the  person  of  Jesus.  And  the 
Christian  consciousness  gives  triumphant  testi- 
mony that  here  is  one  indeed  who  can  show  us 
the  Father's  love,  and  thereby  bring  life  and 
immortality  to  light. 

Thus  the  saviorship  of  Jesus  is  inextricably 
bound  up  with  his  educative  mission — "to  show 
us  the  Father."  The  old  theology  subdivided 
this  work  into  three  parts :  the  formal  teaching, 
the  miracles,  and  the  influence  of  his  per- 
sonality. 

Nothing  can  better  illustrate  how  the  modem 
mind  has  outgrown  this  tendency  to  classify 
the  factors  of  Jesus'  life  than  the  fact  that  the 
first  and  the  second  have  so  far  receded  into 
the  background  as  to  be  nearly  invisible. 

The  teaching  has  been  so  sublimated  in  the 
furnace  of  literary  criticism  until  Hamack  can 
say  without  troubling  the  spirits  that  all  that 
we  can  know  about  the  teaching  of  Jesus — bar- 
ring the  first  three  gospels — can  easily  be 
written  on  a  single  quarto  page.  That  is, 
by  itself,  insufficient  as  the  basis  for  a  world- 
religion. 

With  the  second  the  case  is  still  more  parlous. 
Miracles  are  about  tabooed  in  many  quarters. 


172         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  feelings  in  theological 
circles  generally  that  in  a  representative  gather- 
ing of  the  church's  guardians  the  ingenuous 
remark  can  be  dropped  that  it  was  unsafe  in 
a  mixed  audience  to  discuss  miracles  freely! 
Reputations  might  suffer,  in  truth,  if  all  spoke 
their  minds  freely. 

It  is  probably  true  that  much  which  is  said 
about  the  miracles  as  a  special  intrusion  of  God 
into  the  universe  is  based  upon  a  misconception 
of  what  this  universe  is  and  of  what  God  is ;  but 
the  ominous  retiring  of  miracle  as  a  reliable 
revelation  of  the  Father  shows,  at  the  very 
least,  that  as  an  aid  to  faith  today  it  can  easily 
be  overworked. 

Frances  Power  Cobbe  was  one  speaking  of 
the  absurdity  of  founding  religion  on  histories 
of  miracles.  "Ah,  les  miracles!"  exclaimed 
D'Azeglio,  "  je  n'en  crois  rien.  Ce  sont  de 
coups  d'etat  celestes."  Whether  the  remark 
was  a  perfectly  fair  one  may  be  doubted;  but 
the  exceptional  in  nature — and  nothing  that 
happens  in  nature  is  supernatural — is  certainly 
no  safe  criterion  in  judging  what  God  is  any 
more  than  a  coup  d'etat  is  the  expression  of 
the  normal  development  of  a  government. 

The  third  subject — ^the  personality — has 
taken  possession  of  the  field.  It  is  another 
case  of  "  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease." 

The   Johannine   "  Who  hath  seen  me,  hath 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  ITS 

seen  the  Father,"  gets  very  near  to  the  core  of 
this  new  theology — which  is  as  old  as  Christian- 
ity. The  Christian  believes  that  in  Jesus  we  got 
nearer  to  the  heart  of  God  than  ever  before. 
God  has  always  been  our  Father,  but  we  lacked 
the  power  to  grasp  the  fact.  Then  His  inter- 
locuter  came — "  This  is  the  Father's  good  plea- 
sure," he  told  us ;  "  My  Father  worketh  hither- 
to, and  I  work;"  "Who  doeth  His  will,  he 
is  my  brother."  And  better  than  that — ^he 
hved  a  hfe  so  pure  and  godly  that  these  chance 
remarks  seemed  perfectly  natural,  and  the  eyes 
of  men  were  opened. 

Many  men  have  lived  since  his  time,  and 
many  have  spoken  wise  words.  The  strength 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  past  has  helped  them  to 
do  marvelous  things.  Standing  on  the  shoulders 
of  so  many  generations,  they  have  enjoyed  a 
large  vision  that  has  brought  comfort  to  weak 
souls.  We  have  learned  to  look  with  sympathy 
upon  the  wise  men  of  other  eras  and  are  anxi- 
ously studying  their  bibles  for  more  light.  But 
the  discipline  of  comparative  religion  endorses 
the  ancient  report  that  never  another  man  spoke 
as  he  spoke  or  was  what  he  was. 

The  exceptional  character  of  Jesus  must 
always  modify  the  thought  that  he  is  our  great 
exemplar.  The  case  is  probably  overdrawn  when 
Forrest  says  {The  Christ  of  History  and  of 
Experience,  p.  308),  "As  a  mere  example  He 


174         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

is  no  encouragement  to  us,  for  His  moral  experi- 
ence has  different  conditions  from  ours."  Even 
the  "mere  example"  of  a  perfect,  sinless  being 
may  help  a  sinner  to  aspire.  A  blind  man  may 
be  depressed  at  the  thought  that  he  must  go 
through  the  world  with  reality  at  one  entrance 
quite  shut  out,  yet  he  is  helped  by  the  eye-sight 
of  his  friends.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  "  the  pecu- 
liarity of  His  attitude  is  that  it  cannot  be  imi- 
tated. Here  is  a  note  we  cannot  sound.  It  is 
as  if  He  said,  I  am  first;  there  is  no  second." 
The  best  Christian  dare  not  say.  As  he  was  thus 
will  I  be — it  needs  but  a  fair  trial  to  disillusion 
him;  he  may  only  say,  As  he  was  thus  ought 
I  to  be.  Jesus  represents  humanity  at  its  best. 
We  cannot  imitate  Jesus.  So  be  it.  It  is 
not  wise  that  we  should.  Every  man's  main 
business  is  to  be  true  to  himself.  But  this  is 
facilitated  when  one  has  learned  how  others 
have  done  that.  An  ideal  is  an  inspiration. 
This  is  no  less  true  when  that  ideal  is  associated 
with  a  definite  personality.  Jesus  was  some  of 
the  things  that  we  desire  to  be,  that  we  imagine 
as  the  standard  of  life  to  which  Paul  aspired 
and  to  which  we  shall  aspire  until  we  shall  have 
reached  the  fulness  of  the  stature  of  the  man- 
hood of  Christ. 

THE  STANDARD  APPLIED  TO  LIFE 

Whatever  the  reason  may  have  been,  Jesus 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  175 

avoided,  on  principle,  the  giving  of  an  elaborate 
set  of  regulations  which  was  sure  to  go  to 
pieces,  as  monasticism  abundantly  testified,  when 
erected  into  a  final  authority  on  matters  of  con- 
duct. His  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world.  His 
business  was  so  important  that  he  could  ill 
spare  the  time,  even  if  he  had  ever  thought 
of  doing  so,  to  accomplish  work  which  others 
might  accomplish  just  as  well.  His  whole  natural 
bent  was  of  a  kind  to  render  it  antecedently 
improbable  that  he  would  care  to  make  a  Code 
Napoleon,  or  the  laws  of  a  Genevan  theocracy, 
or  the  rules  of  the  Franciscan  order.  In  such 
matters  his  followers  were  to  follow  the  tradi- 
tional authorities,  Moses  and  the  prophets. 
They  too  had  spoken  of  God  and  for  God. 

The  life,  fragmentarily  recorded  though  it 
is,  warrants  no  other  conclusion.  It  is  a  most 
inadequate  conception  which  seeks  in  the  New 
Testament  a  text-book  on  Christian  casuistry, 
which  makes  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  a  law- 
book for  the  Republic  of  God  and  metamor- 
phoses its  reputed  author  into  a  second  Moses. 

But  one  thing  such  a  "sermon"  does  indi- 
cate: it  shows  that  the  standards  of  Jesus  could 
be  expressed  in  simple  terms,  and  that  they 
were  not  meant  to  be  unattainable.  There  are 
many  precious  stones  lying  loose  in  the  gospels 
which  the  artist  in  Matthew  has  refused  to  fit 
into   his   brilliant   mosaic;   here   and   there  we 


176         THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

detect  the  hand  that  rejects  the  material  not 
suited  to  his  design,  that  cuts  some  promising 
gem  to  set  off  the  beauty  of  a  wonderful  picture. 
But  taken  all  in  all  this  literary  production 
shows  better  than  anything  else  what  Jesus 
stood  for.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  not  the 
whole  of  Christianity,  as  some  have  imagined; 
but  nothing  else,  taken  by  itself,  can  so  well 
teach  what  was  the  Master's  aim. 

For  the  sake  of  definiteness,  then,  rather  than 
completeness,  it  will  be  practicable  to  indicate 
the  nature  of  Jesus'  thought  as  there  expressed. 

Reduced  to  the  lowest  terms,  we  have,  after 
the  beatitudes,  the  following  clear-cut  in- 
junctions : 

Let  your  beneficent  light  shine! 

Change  nothing  about  the  Scripture ! 

Do  not  get  angry ! 

Forgive ! 

Do  not  commit  adultery! 

Pluck  out  the  offending  eye,  or  hand,  or 
foot! 

Do  not  divorce  your  faithful  wife! 

Do  not  swear! 

Do  not  oppose  evil! 

Love  your  enemies! 

Perform  your  righteousness,  your  devotions, 
your  mortifications,  in  secret! 

Do  not  babble  in  prayer ! 

Pray  as  I  teach  you:  Our  Father  who  art 
in  heaven  etc. ! 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  177 

Do  not  gather  earthly  riches! 

Do  not  worry  about  life,  food,  and  clothing! 

Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His 
righteousness ! 

Do  not  be  censorious! 

Do  not  waste  your  treasures! 

Remember  that  persistent  prayer  is  always 
heard ! 

Always,  fair  play! 

In  life,  choose  the  narrow  way ! 

Shun  lying  prophets! 

That  is  all;  the  outline,  so  to  speak,  of  a 
Christian  ethic.  These  are  not  rules,  to  be 
modified  with  many  a  but  and  if.  As  rules  of 
conduct  they  lack  something,  otherwise  it  would 
be  easy  to  construct  a  perfectly  normal  Chris- 
tianity. Jesus  was  free  to  adapt  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  his  purposes ;  it  is  not  surprising  that 
his  disciples,  once  they  had  learned  to  follow 
the  Master,  once  they  had  learned  that  his 
authoritative  personality  was  more  important 
than  the  rules,  felt  free  to  carry  this  beginning 
to  its  logical  conclusion. 

The  story  of  this  movement  is  told  in  the 
historic  eff^ort  of  the  early  church  to  make  a 
clean  sweep  of  the  old  legal  system,  culminat- 
ing in  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of 
God.  As  rules,  these  commands  and  prohibitions 
were  sure  to  work  havoc,  for  they  still  permitted 
man  to   neglect  the  weightier  matters.     Here 


178  THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

monasticism  came  to  grief.  Here  a  Tolstoy 
was  sure  to  alienate  many  who  otherwise  would 
have  lent  a  sympathetic  ear. 

Man  will  do  anything  for  his  religion.  He 
will  obey  the  absurdest  rules ;  and  he  will  break 
the  most  sacred  injunctions  with  equal  consci- 
entiousness. The  old  negro's  statement  was  a 
perfectly  sober  one :  "  I  have  broken  every  one 
of  the  commandments,  but,  thank  the  Lord! 
I  haven't  lost  my  religion!" 

It  is  not  the  Jewish  itinerant  teacher,  speak- 
ing under  the  stress  of  certain  local  restrictions, 
who  guides  the  twentieth  century;  it  is  not  the 
interpreter  of  the  Mosaic  code  of  laws ;  it  is 
not  even  the  preacher  of  the  sermon  on  the  hill- 
side— we  were  not  there  to  catch  the  veritable 
words  of  power  that  made  fishermen  into  world- 
conquerors:  our  authority  is  the  spirit  of  the 
loving,  living  Christ.  And  where  one  has  the 
opportunity  to  interpret  the  principles  of  such 
an  one  it  seems  a  despicable  thing  to  haggle 
over  the  ipsissima  verba  relating  to  mere  con- 
temporary conventions,  as  many  of  them  do. 

Arranging  these  sayings  and  all  else  which 
is  in  any  way  related  to  that  wonderful  person- 
ality in  their  proper  perspective,  we  can  see 
that  Jesus  is  still  our  authority,  because  he 
has  supplied  us  with  a  spiritual  basis  for  our 
religion.  The  history  of  the  church  is  largely 
a  history  of  evasion;  but  we  cannot  rid  our- 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  179 

selves  of  the  haunting  thought  that  if  we  could 
only  live  up  to  such  a  standard  it  would  be 
weU  with  the  world,  and  many  a  hard  task 
would  solve  itself.  Even  our  social  problems 
would  fade  away  in  the  light  of  the  social  gospel, 
though  we  must  admit  that  Jesus  had  but  little 
to  say  about  work  and  play  and  capital  and 
pauperism  and  the  insanity  of  war. 

For  in  the  religious  world,  which  controls 
every  other  world,  it  is  none  other  than  Jesus 
whose  words  are  decisive  for  the  western  mind. 
For  his  sake  we  are  willing  to  quit  our  theoriz- 
ing; for  his  sake  we  will  abolish  our  scruples 
about  the  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  of  belief; 
in  his  name  we  can  now  call  all  men  brothers; 
in  his  name  we  can  call  upon  God,  who  is  the 
Father  of  us  all,  as  the  One  who  is  over  all, 
and  in  all,  and  through  all.  We  can  say,  in 
effect,  what  M.  Claudius  once  wrote :  "  He  who 
cannot  believe  in  Jesus  must  see  to  it  how  he 
will  manage  without  Him.  We  cannot  do  that. 
We  need  someone  to  help  us  live  and  to  help 
us  die,  and  we  know  of  no  other  person  whom 
we  would  rather  have.  As  He  believed,  so  we 
believe;  we  can  safely  put  ourselves  into  His 
and  our  Father's  hands." 

Thus  we  have  reached  the  end  of  our  tortu- 
ous road.  Some  will  ask  themselves,  was  it  worth 
travelling.?  Any  road  is  worth  travelling  that 
leads  us  to  God. 


180        THE  DILEMMA  OF  THE 

This  is  what  the  journey  has  yielded: 
Theology  has  always  engaged  the  mind  of 
thinking  man.  Man  is  a  seeker  after  God. 
In  this  search  the  emergence  of  Jesus  Christ 
has  become  determinative.  It  was  Paul  who  was 
responsible  for  the  shifting  of  the  interest 
among  the  early  Christians.  He  owed  all  to 
the  supernatural  Christ;  to  magnify  this  his 
Savior  and  Lord  became  his  life-work.  The 
magnification  of  the  Lord  can  be  traced  through- 
out the  New  Testament.  For  the  church  the 
Easter  message  that  the  Lord  was  alive  for- 
evermore  was  decisive.  It  was  natural  that 
this  Lord  of  Life  should  become  the  inspirer 
of  a  new  religion.  We  can  ascertain  but  little 
of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus,  but  it  is  reason- 
ably certain  that  his  ultimate  aim  was,  not 
the  creation  of  a  new  religion,  but  the  establish- 
ing of  God's  kingdom.  His  whole  world  cen- 
tered in  God.  His  prayer-life  shows  that.  But 
the  disciples  of  the  primitive  church  felt  free 
to  draw  him  into  their  prayer-life.  This  was 
not  without  its  dangers.  But  a  man's  prayers 
cannot  be  made  to  conform  to  hard  rules.  The 
hymns  of  the  church  give  a  poetic  expression 
to  this  freedom.  Christians  desire  to  pray  to 
Jesus  because  they  are  cognizant  of  his  un- 
selfish work,  because  he  seemed  to  be  nearer 
to  them  than  the  great  and  holy  God,  and  be- 
cause of  the  conviction  that  he  was  the  very 


MODERN  CHRISTIAN  181 

embodiment  of  God.  But  with  the  modern 
interests  in  life  has  come  a  readjustment  of 
some  of  the  claims  of  the  Christian  religion. 
For  one  thing,  the  world  appears  under  a  dif- 
ferent aspect  to  the  man  of  today.  In  this 
world  we  can  see  something  of  God.  All  the 
indications  are  that  God  is  not  far  from  each 
one  of  us,  that  we  all  have  our  being  in  Him. 
It  is  the  God  in  nature,  in  man,  in  Jesus  Christ, 
whom  man  worships.  In  Jesus  dwelt  the  ful- 
ness of  the  Godhead  bodily — ^the  compulsion  is 
upon  the  Christian  mind  to  acknowledge  his 
supremacy,  if  not  in  all  the  minor  interests  of 
life,  in  the  large  matters  of  the  soul's  religion. 
The  modern  Christian  may  have  lost  some 
things;  what  is  left  stands  out  all  the  more 
prominently,  like  some  granitic  Alp  from  whose 
sloping  foot-lands  the  torrents  have  washed 
away  the  debris  of  the  ages.  These  crumbling 
fragments  came  from  the  heights,  it  is  true; 
but  they  also  impeded  our  way  to  the  summit. 
Up  there  the  stars  shine  in  celestial  splendor. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  man  of  today  shall 
not  have  as  much  assurance  as  Peter  had.  To 
the  plaintive  query  of  the  Master:  Would  ye 
also  go  away.''  we  can  say.  Lord,  to  whom  then 
shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life;  and  we  have  believed  and  know  that  Thou 
art  the  Holy  One  of  God. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN     INITIAL     FINE     OF     25     CENTS 

WILL   BE   ASSESSED    FOR    FAILURE  TO    RETURN 
THIS    BOOK   ON    THE    DATE    DUE.     THE   PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY     AND     TO     $1.00     ON     THE     SEVENTH     DAY 

SEP   111933 

FEB    7  1935 

*H0^^^^' 

NOV  17  19*^W. 

OfC  1   ^^ 

"^^^21    ^..j 

APR  12  194f 

iSMaysSAj 

REC'D  UD 

MM  5    ^^59 

J 

LD  21-50m-l.'3 

YB  21963 


304010 


L- 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


